Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 25-Nov-17 World View -- Egypt's worst terrorist attack in modern history kills 235 people in Sufi mosque

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Egypt's worst terrorist attack in modern history kills 235 people in Sufi mosque
  
• Friday's attack creates another roadblock for Hamas-Fatah unity
  
• Friday's attack is a major escalation in north Sinai terrorism
  

****
**** Egypt's worst terrorist attack in modern history kills 235 people in Sufi mosque
****


Rescue personnel at the site of the bomb blast at Al-Rawda mosque in North Sinai. (Gulf News)

At least 235 people were killed on Friday when terrorists stormed the
Al-Rawda mosque in Bir al-Abed in Egypt's Northern Sinai with
explosives and gunfire with heavy weapons. This was the deadliest
terror attack in Egypt's modern history, the previous record having
been set by a terror attack on July 23, 2005, on Egypt's result city
Sharm el-Sheikh, killing 88 people. The 2015 downing of Metrojet
Flight 9268 killed all 224 passengers onboard, but investigation has
not yet revealed the cause of the crash.

Egypt's president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi promised revenge for these
"vile and treacherous" attacks:

<QUOTE>"The army and police will avenge our martyrs and
return security and stability with force in the coming short
period."<END QUOTE>

On Friday afternoon a military operation was launched, targeting
suspects in North Sinai. According to Egyptian media:

<QUOTE>"The response will be on the ground and will not stop
until the elimination of everyone involved in the attack. We are
taking our revenge now."<END QUOTE>

In 2014, al-Sisi declared a state of emergency in northern Sinai
following a suicide bombing that killed
33 soldiers. He said at the time that "the war in Sinai will last for
a long time, as there are a lot of terrorists hiding in the peninsula,
but this new level of attacks has put us in a new level of planning
too in order to combat the terrorism there."

Since then, Egypt's military has attacked in northern Sinai numerous
targets suspected of being terrorists. Al-Sisi's critics have called
the attacks a "scorched earth policy" that has embittered the Bedouin
tribes in northern Sinai, and encouraged them to support the terrorist
groups. Egyptian Streets and Al Ahram (Cairo) and Times of Israel and Al Jazeera

Related: Egypt in state of emergency after terrorist attack in Sinai (26-Oct-2014)

****
**** Friday's attack creates another roadblock for Hamas-Fatah unity
****

When the above-mentioned terror attack occurred in 2014,
it was a few weeks after the end of summer war between
Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and Egypt had mediated a truce that
ended the war. One of the terms of the agreement is that
the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would be
reopened, allowing people and goods to pass back and forth
between Gaza and Egypt. After the terror attack, Egypt closed
the Rafah border crossing again, and it's been opened only
sporadically since then.

On October 12 of this year, Egypt mediated a reconciliation and unity
agreement between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank. The two
Palestinian groups have been enemies since they were at war in 2008,
and multiple attempts at reconciliation have failed.

The new agreement requires that the Rafah border crossing be
opened permanently, with the crossing under control of Fatah rather
than Hamas. The border crossing was opened for the first time
last Saturday for three days.

It was scheduled to be opened again today (Saturday), but Egypt has
reportedly said that the reopening will be delayed indefinitely. It's
already been unclear that the Hamas-Fatah unity government would
succeed, because of a disagreement over whether Hamas must give up its
weapons, but this terror attack creates one more roadblock. AFP

Related Articles

• Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas announce unity agreement (13-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Palestinian reconciliation talks ignore Hamas commitment to destroy Israel (12-Oct-2017)
  

****
**** Friday's attack is a major escalation in north Sinai terrorism
****

No one has yet claimed credit for Friday's attack on the Al-Rawda
mosque, but it's believed that the perpetrators were the Bedouin-based
Sinai terrorist group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM - Ansar Jerusalem -
Champions of Jerusalem), which changed its name to al-Wilayat Sinai
(Province of Sinai) when it changed its allegiance in 2015 from
al-Qaeda to the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).

According to several analysts, this is a major escalation by ABM
because it targets so many civilians, and because it exhibits a skill
level not seen before. A detailed explanation was given on al-Jazeera
by Omar Ashour from Arab Center For Research And Policy Studies in
Doha (my transcription):

<QUOTE>"[ABM is the] most powerful armed non-state actor in
Egypt's modern history. Capable of operating in a conventional
special forces like way, capable of using light artillery, capable
of using guided anti-tank missiles, using guided anti-aircraft
missiles, and fighting partly in a conventional way, partly in a
guerrilla warfare way, but also using a long campaign of urban
terrorism.

So the tribal code here was violated: First time attack on a
mosque, first time attack on Sufis.

Usually the indiscriminate attacks are targeting Copts [Coptic
Christians], or targeting soldiers and officers from the army and
the police, or sometimes targeting Israel.

But those other attacks are very very discriminatory, especially
when it comes to informants. If there's somebody who's accused of
being an informant, they target him. They try to avoid his family
or his friends or the people around him.

The same thing applies to some of the militia tribesmen who fight
along with the army. They target the specific groups of
tribesmen, but they don't attack the whole tribe.

So this is new, in terms of its lethality, and in terms of its
indiscriminately targeting a large section of the
society."<END QUOTE>

Other analysts have pointed out that the particular mosque that was
targeted by terrorists on Friday was owned by a Bedouin tribe that had
been cooperating with Egypt's security forces. That would make
Friday's attack consistent with previous assaults, which had mainly
targeted security forces and Egypt's Christian minority. Gulf News and CNN

Related Articles

• Egypt's military action against Sinai Bedouins comes to a standstill (29-Aug-2012)
  
  
• Bedouins in Sinai threaten both Egypt and Israel (20-May-2012)
  
  
• Israel and Egypt cooperate against terrorists in Sinai (13-Jul-2013)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Egypt, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi,
North Sinai, Al-Rawda, Sharm el-Sheikh,
Ansar Jerusalem, Ansar Bayt al Maqdis, ABM, Champions of Jerusalem,
Bedouins, Sinai Province, Al Wilayat Sinai,
Gaza, West Bank, Hamas, Fatah, Rafah border crossing

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 26-Nov-17 World View -- Widespread riots in Pakistan triggered by phony blasphemy charges

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Widespread riots in Pakistan triggered by phony blasphemy charges
  
• Pakistan releases Hafiz Saeed, mastermind of the horrific 2008 26/11 Mumbai massacre
  

****
**** Widespread riots in Pakistan triggered by phony blasphemy charges
****


Hafiz Saeed, mastermind of the horrific 2008 26/11 Mumbai massacre, is released from jail and receives cheers and showers of rose petals (Reuters)

Several of Pakistan's cities are paralyzed by major roads being
blocked by thousands of Islamists sitting in, demanding that the
government be dissolved. More than 100 people were injured on
Saturday in clashes between police and the protesters, after 4,000
police officers were called out to disperse the protesters.

The government has called in the army to help end the protests, but
it's unknown whether the army will obey, since many suspect that the
army is on the side of the protesters.

By nightfall, the protests had spread to other cities, including
Karachi, Lahore and Quetta, and hundreds had been injured.

Television footage showed a police vehicle on fire, heavy curtains of
smoke and fires burning in the streets as officers in heavy riot gear
advanced. Protesters, some wearing gas masks, fought back in scattered
battles across empty highways and surrounding neighborhoods. The
government has reacted by ordering private tv stations off the air,
and by blocking social media.

The protests were triggered by a blasphemy charge last month against a
government minister. Blasphemy charges in Pakistan are almost always
phony, but phony blasphemy charges are used freely in Pakistan as
justification for any kind of uncontrolled mob violence or any kind of
unjustified murder or jailing.

The blasphemy charge is being leveled at the law minister Zahid Hamid,
because of a modification to a political oath. The wording of the
oath removed the declamation that Mohammed was the last prophet of
Islam.

The original wording of the oath has been restored, but that's
not satisfactory to the protesters.

Hamid says that he had nothing to do with changing the wording of the
oath. The government is trying to pressure him to resign, and
offering to appoint him as ambassador to the country of his choice.
He's rejected all such offers, and is quoted as saying, "For god’s
sake do not make me another Salman Taseer and bring forth all the
officials responsible for the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat fiasco."
("Khatm-e-Nabuwwat" is the name of the oath.)

Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province in Pakistan, was shot
28 times in broad daylight in an open marketplace on January 4, 2011.
The killer was his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri. The motive, as described
by Qadri, was to punish Taseer for objecting to Pakistan's blasphemy
laws, and for calling for the release of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi,
who was in jail facing execution for violating the blasphemy laws.
Qadri was finally executed last year, but not before he became a
national hero for killing Taseer over a phony blasphemy charge.

So Hamid does not want to be murdered like Taseer, and his residence
has already been ransacked by crazed protesters, shattering windows
and destroying furniture. But he's also threatening to reveal the
people in government who were actually responsible for the wording
change.

Pakistan's government, governed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz
(PML-N), is close to collapse. The former prime minister Nawaz Sharif
is still the head of the party, but he was forced out of office by the
court in July because he had been accused of corruption and was face
with a trial. Opposition parties are calling for early elections.
The government is desperate to end this crisis, but if Hamid continues
to refuse to resign, it may not survive. Dawn (Pakistan) and Reuters and Pakistan Today and Express Tribune (Pakistan)

Related Articles

• Pakistan's bizarre blasphemy laws lead to death threats for son of slain governor (04-Jan-2017)
  
  
• Pakistan's crisis worsens as senior politician is assassinated (05-Jan-2011)
  
  
• History of blasphemy laws in UK, Ireland and Pakistan (20-Sep-2012)
  
  
• Pakistan unexpectedly executes murderer of liberal politician Salman Taseer (01-Mar-2016)
  
  
• Thousands protest violently over execution of murderer of blasphemy reformer (28-Mar-2016)
  

****
**** Pakistan releases Hafiz Saeed, mastermind of the horrific 2008 26/11 Mumbai massacre
****

Hafiz Saeed, the head of the now outlawed Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
terrorist group, has been freed from house arrest with no trial and
all charges dropped.

India and Pakistan were at the brink of war following the November
2008 three-day '26/11' terror attack in Mumbai.
That attack was perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).
India threatened to invade Pakistani soil to go after Lashkar-e-Toiba,
but Pakistan promised to prosecute LeT members itself. Now Hafiz
Saeed, the head of LeT and the mastermind of the Mumbai attack, has
been freed by a Pakistan court, greeted by chanting crowds and rose
petals.

According to a statement from the White House:

<QUOTE>"Saeed’s release, after Pakistan’s failure to
prosecute or charge him, sends a deeply troubling message about
Pakistan’s commitment to [combating] international terrorism and
belies Pakistani claims that it will not provide sanctuary for
terrorists on its soil.

If Pakistan does not take action to lawfully detain Saeed and
charge him for his crimes, its inaction will have repercussions
for bilateral relations and for Pakistan’s global
reputation."<END QUOTE>

The exact nature of the "repercussions" was not specified.

This story, and the previous story about the rise of extreme Islamist
groups and their ability to shut down entire Pakistan cities, suggests
that Pakistan is in the midst of a major political shift that could
bring Islamist extremist political parties into power. This is of
particular concern in Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons.

There are new Pakistan elections scheduled for 2018, and that may
clarify the situation. At the least, talk of peace with India,
particularly in Kashmir, is probably not in the cards. Dawn (Pakistan) and Reuters and The Diplomat

Related Articles

• Mastermind of 2008 Mumbai attack leads Pakistan protests against India (21-Jul-2016)
  
  
• India threatens retaliation on Pakistan terrorists for air base attack (12-Jan-2016)
  
  
• Cricketing world in shock after attack on Sri Lanka team in Pakistan (04-Mar-2009)
  
  
• After Mumbai's '26/11' nightmare finally ends, India - Pakistan relations face crisis (30-Nov-2008)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, Zahid Hamid, Khatm-e-Nabuwwat,
Salman Taseer, Mumtaz Qadri, Asia Bibi,
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, PML-N, Nawaz Sharif,
India, Mumbai, 26/11, Hafiz Saeed, Lashkar-e-Toiba, LeT, Kashmir

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 27-Nov-17 World View -- Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin hug and declare the end of war in Syria

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Syrian regime and Russia launch brutal attack on rebel-held areas in East Ghouta
  
• Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin hug and declare the end of war in Syria
  

****
**** Syrian regime and Russia launch brutal attack on rebel-held areas in East Ghouta
****


Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad hug and say that the Syria war is at an end (AP)

At least 127 people, including 30 children, have been killed in the
last two weeks by shelling by the army of the regime of Syria's
president Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian warplanes.
23 people, including 5 children, were killed on Sunday.

Drones have patrolled the sky since Sunday morning and warplanes had
heavily bombarded the towns of Mesraba and Harasta. Heavy shelling
also hit Eastern Ghouta and dozens had been injured. Ghouta residents
are so short of food that they are eating trash, fainting from hunger
and forcing their children to eat on alternate days, according to
United Nations reports.

The region struck by Syrian artillery and Russian warplanes is listed
as a "de-escalation" zone, by agreement between Russia, Iran and
Turkey in a series of "peace talks" held in Astana, Kazakhstan.
However, Bashar al-Assad never agreed to abide by the de-escalation
zone agreement.

Opposition fighters in the area have been retaliating by sending
artillery shells into Damascus. There are some 300,000 people in
Eastern Ghouta, and al-Assad is apparently planning to do what he did
in Aleppo: Target women and children in marketplaces, schools and
marketplaces, and kill as many of the 300,000 people as he can.
Al-Assad has used Sarin gas in Ghouta in the past to kill large
groups, and he may do so again. Reuters and Daily Star (Lebanon) and Al Jazeera

****
**** Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin hug and declare the end of war in Syria
****

The picture at the beginning of this article showing Russia's
president Vladimir Putin and Syria's president Bashar al-Assad hugging
during a meeting in Sochi last week was meant to send a message to the
world that the war in Syria was over, and the two men had brought
about the victory.

At the meeting, Putin said:

<QUOTE>"I asked the Syrian president to stop by. I would
like to introduce you to people [al-Assad] who played a key role
in saving Syria.

Regarding our joint operation to fight terrorists in Syria, this
military operation is indeed coming to an end. I'm pleased to see
your willingness to work with everyone who wants peace and
settlement."<END QUOTE>

I've occasionally quoted Joshua Landis, an American analyst
and expert on Syria, who is widely quoted in the media.
When I quoted Landis two months ago,
he was quite pessimistic about Syria, and
thought that the violence was spiking almost uncontrollably.

Well, he was interviewed by the BBC again on Sunday, and this time he
seems to agree with al-Assad and Putin that the war is over, and they
had won it. He referred to plans for a Geneva peace conference to
begin on Tuesday (my transcription):

<QUOTE>"It is the end game for the rebels. The Syrian army
has conquered big swaths of the country back. Most of the foreign
supporters -- Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the US, Turkey -- have really
become dispirited and feel like the civil war is over. They don't
wanna continue giving them money. So it is the death knell for
these rebel groups. ...

The Syrian opposition that America has supported -- they just met
in Saudi Arabia and named a new leader and they're going to be in
Geneva. They have promised not to demand that Assad go, but they
insist on a transitional government, and the question is, what
role does Assad play in that? The Americans want there to be
elections overseen by the UN, The opposition believes that this is
a trap, that Assad will never allow free elections, that the West
won't enforce free elections. And this will all become a lot of
words and rhetoric towards Assad regaining literacy and rule.

This hug [between Putin and al-Assad] in Sochi was a victory hug
in a sense, claiming that they had won against ISIS, and they had
won in the face of the world, and that's what they were trying to
convey. The sense is that if the world wants to move ahead in
Syria, they have to recognize Assad has won, Russia has won. The
United States is not really prepared to do that. The US has
helped what they call the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), which are
really Kurdish forces in the north of the country. [The SDF]
destroyed a lot of ISIS territory, but 25% of Syria's territory is
now dominated by these Kurdish forces, and there are 2,000
American special forces in the north of Syria, Almost 50% of
Syria's oil is in that region. So that gives America a lot of
leverage. The US authorities have said that they're gonna stay in
Syria until they get traction with the Geneva process.

I don't think we're going to get a lot of mileage out of Geneva.
Assad believes he's won. He is not going to make concessions,
even if America stays in northern Syria. I think Assad will
surround the Americans, he will talk with the Turks, and he will
try to pressure the Kurds and the Americans, who are in a weak
position there, and think, "I can sit them out, I'll wait until
President Trump is out of there, the next president comes in."

[President Putin has come out of this domestically looking pretty
good.] Russia is helping to establish a new security architecture
in the northern Middle East, with Iran, where Iran and Russia will
have a lot of sway, in countries stretching from Iran right
through to Lebanon, where Hezbollah is the biggest, strongest
power. And this really pushes the United States out of this
region, and helps Russia regain a lot of the sphere of influence
that it lost during the cold war. And even Turkey is now going to
Russia much more often then it's going to Washington.

This has implications [for NATO and] for the entire region, and
for American power, which used to be the dominant superpower.
Today the world is looking a lot more like the 19th century Europe
where there's spheres of influence, with lots of different great
powers, all elbowing each other for leverage and
sway."<END QUOTE>

Landis claims that al-Assad and Putin have won, and the opposition has
lost, but he certainly doesn't make that case, except by repeating
Putin's claims. And many things are omitted.

Let's start with Saudi Arabia, who Landis says is "dispirited" and
resigned to an al-Assad victory. The new Saudi leader, Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), in the last three months has taken numerous
extremely aggressive and surprising steps to block what he sees is an
existential threat from Iran. These steps included a land, sea and
air blockade of Qatar, a land, sea and air blockade of Yemen, a house
arrest of dozens of wealthy Saudis on charges of corruption, and
bringing about the resignation of Lebanon's prime minister Saad
al-Hariri. Does Landis or anyone think that MBS is going to stop
there, and just let Iran gain control of parts of Syria? I certainly
don't think so.

Next, Russia has announced that it will substantially reduce its
forces in Syria by the end of the year. Two years ago, al-Assad
was facing complete defeat, until Russia intervened with massive
military forces, especially airstrikes. Russia's forces saved
al-Assad, and in particular destruction of Aleppo was accomplished
by Russia's warplanes. East Ghouta is larger than Aleppo, which
indicates to me that Russia's military will have to stay engaged
a lot longer than the end of the year.

Landis points out that the Kurds control 25% of Syria, including half
of the country's oil, and that the Kurds are backed by US forces.
This Kurdish control is intolerable to al-Assad. Landis says that
al-Assad will simply wait until Donald Trump is replaced by another
president. Huh? Is al-Assad really willing to wait and allow the
Kurds to consolidate their control of the region until 2020 or 2024?
And why is he so certain that the next president would allow the Kurds
to be killed by al-Assad (and the Turks)?

Putin, al-Assad and Landis all have what I would call a "1990s
mentality." At that time, most of the world was in a generational
Unraveling era, meaning that survivors of World War II were still
alive and running things, and were prepared to make sure that nothing
spiraled into war.

Today, the world is in a generational Crisis era, with the WW II
survivors gone, replaced in positions of power by younger generations
with almost no clue what's going on in the world. In the 1990s,
Saudi Arabia might have been content just to let the situation in
Syria resolve itself. Today, Saudi leader MBS has already proven
that he's not willing to let anything just resolve itself.
People today who make plans based on a "1990s mentality" are going
to be terribly wrong. The world is a very different place today
than it was in the 1990s.

Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major
regional war, pitting Sunnis versus Shias, Jews versus Arabs, and
various ethnic groups against each other. Generational Dynamics
predicts that in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, the
"axis" of China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries will be
pitted against the "allies," the US, India, Russia and Iran. AP and Deutsche Welle and Arab News/AFP and
Middle East Eye

Related Articles

• Syria war violence surges as Bashar al-Assad repeats Aleppo genocide in Ghouta (15-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Syria's war resumes in full, as 'de-escalation' agreements unravel (06-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Syria and Russia see 'the light at the end of the tunnel' after Aleppo victory (18-Dec-2016)
  
  
• Syria's al-Assad goes for the kill, turning Aleppo and civilians to bloody rubble (24-Sep-2016)
  
  
• Russia uses the 'Grozny Model' to pursue mass slaughter in Aleppo Syria (02-Aug-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Vladimir Putin,
East Ghouta, Astana, Kazakhstan, Joshua Landis,
Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, MBS, Yemen, Qatar,
Lebanon, Saad al-Hariri, Aleppo

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 28-Nov-17 World View -- The issue of Ireland's border threatens to collapse EU-UK Brexit negotiations.

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• The issue of Ireland's border threatens to collapse EU-UK Brexit negotiations.
  
• Ireland's government faces vote of no confidence on Wednesday
  

****
**** The issue of Ireland's border threatens to collapse EU-UK Brexit negotiations.
****


Border checkpoint between Sweden, which is in the European Union, and Norway, which is NOT in the EU. (Sky News)

European Union Brexit negotiators are demanding that by December 4,
the UK must provide written commitments in three areas, having to do
with EU citizens working in the UK, money the UK must pay to the EU,
and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Without those written commitments, the EU says that it won't allow
negotiations on the trade UK-EU trade relationship after Brexit occurs
to begin at a summit meeting on December 13-14.

Without the being able to start trade negotiations on December 13, the
UK says that it may pull out of Brexit negotiations, and allow a "hard
Brexit" to occur, where the UK will be a completely separate country,
with no direct relationship at all with the EU except as specified by
international organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Leo Varadkar, the prime minister of Ireland, has made the EU demand
explicit:

<QUOTE>"We’ve been given assurances that there will be no
hard border in Ireland, that there won’t be any physical
infrastructure, that we won’t go back to the borders of the past.

We want that written down in practical terms in the conclusions of
phase one [by December 14]."<END QUOTE>

Liam Fox, the UK's chief Brexit negotiator, says that the UK will not
be able to provide a committed solution to the Irish border problem in
time to meet the EU and Irish demands. Fox says that the Irish border
problem cannot be solved until trade negotiations are well under way.
The EU says that trade negotiations cannot get under way until the
Irish border problem is solved. Chicken and eggs for breakfast,
anyone?

Northern Ireland is a part of the UK. Southern Ireland, the Republic
of Ireland or just Ireland, is a separation nation, and a member
nation of the European Union. Today, both Northern Ireland and
Ireland are part of the European Union, and there's no visible border
between the two. Goods and people can travel freely between them.

If the UK leaves the EU, then Northern Ireland and Ireland will be in
two different countries, and there would have to be border controls
between them -- watchtowers, border posts, visa and passport checks at
ports and airports, and tariffs on imported goods.

Leaders of all the parties -- the UK, the EU, Northern Ireland, the
Republic of Ireland -- all agree that the invisible border must remain
invisible. The problem is that no one can figure out how to do that
if Brexit is to occur.

The border issue goes beyond watchtowers and border posts, because of
the decades of violence known as "The Troubles," where there were
violent clashes between the indigenous ethnic Irish Gaelics (the
Catholics) and the descendants of the English and Scottish invaders
(the Protestants). These clashes were resolved only 20 years ago by
the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (the Belfast Agreement) that resolved
many issues, and particularly eliminated the hard border, turning it
into an "invisible border" that anyone can cross at any time. Many
people are expressing concerns that a new hard border would bring
about a return to The Troubles. BBC and Reuters and Irish Times and Guardian (London) and NY Review of Books

****
**** Ireland's government faces vote of no confidence on Wednesday
****

Leo Varadkar, the prime minister of Ireland, is facing a vote of no
confidence on Wednesday that could lead to the collapse of his
government and force new elections before Christmas, possibly further
complicating the Brexit negotiations.

In 2015, Sergeant Maurice McCabe became a whistleblower and came
forward to report several issues involving corruption in the Garda,
Ireland's National Police Force. Officials in the Garda allegedly
tried to undermine McCabe's testimony with a phony sexual abuse
accusation.

A May, 2014, e-mail message to then-Minister of Justice Frances
Fitzgerald has emerged, suggesting that she was aware of the phony
charges, but did nothing about them. Fitzgerald says that she may
have read the e-mail message, but forgot it because it recommended she
take no further action.

Frances Fitzgerald is currently Ireland's deputy premier, and
Varadkar's opposition is demanding that she resign.

Varadkar is now in intense negotiations with the opposition:

<QUOTE>"We are trying to find a middle way that allows the
Government to continue and continue with the important work we are
doing, particularly with Brexit and ensuring that we have
necessary legislation through. We are doing everything we
can."<END QUOTE>

If no compromise is reached, then a motion of no confidence will be
offered on Tuesday night. If the government collapses, then Varadkar
will be a caretaker prime minister when he travels to Brussels for the
December 13-14 Brexit summit. Belfast Telegraph and Bloomberg and Independent (Ireland) and Ireland Joe

Related Articles

• European Union Brexit negotiator gives Britain a two-week ultimatum (11-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Sectarian violence in Northern Ireland grows again (23-Jun-2011)
  
  
• England threatened with IRA terrorists from Northern Ireland (12-May-2016)
  
  
• European Union lays out demands for Britain over Brexit negotiations (30-Apr-2017)
  
  
• Brexit: The die is cast, and the EU is playing hardball (31-Mar-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Ireland, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom,
European Union, Brexit, Leo Varadkar, Liam Fox,
Good Friday Agreement, Belfast Agreement, The Troubles,
Maurice McCabe, Frances Fitzgerald
Generational Dynamics, Ireland, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom,
European Union, Brexit, Leo Varadkar, Liam Fox,
Good Friday Agreement, Belfast Agreement, The Troubles,
Maurice McCabe, Frances Fitzgerald

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John J. Xenakis
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Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
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[John J. Xenakis]

*** 29-Nov-17 World View -- Pakistan government totally capitulates to hardline Islamist TLYRAP Barelvi sect mob

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Pakistan government totally capitulates to hardline Islamist TLYRAP Barelvi sect mob
  
• Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah of Pakistan (TLYR or TLYRAP) has roots in Barelvi sect and murder of Salman Taseer
  
• North Korea ballistic missiles threaten 'everywhere in the world'
  

****
**** Pakistan government totally capitulates to hardline Islamist TLYRAP Barelvi sect mob
****


Hardline Islamist sit-in in Islamabad last week (Pakistan Today)

For several weeks, cities across Pakistan were paralyzed
with major roads blocked by a mob of
thousands of Islamists in a sit-in, escalating into clashes with
thousands of police. The sit-in and riots were triggered by a phony
blasphemy charge last month against a government minister, Zahid
Hamid, for supposedly being responsible for modifying the wording of a
government oath, omitting the name of Mohammed.

After weeks of chaos, on Tuesday, the government totally capitulated
to the demands of the mob, which was led Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool
Allah of Pakistan (TLYR or TLYRAP), a small Islamist political party
coming from the hardline, dangerous Barelvi sect.

The terms of the capitulation are as follows:

• "Federal Law Minister Zahid Hamid, under whose ministry the
  controversial amendment to the Constitution was introduced, should
  resign from his position immediately."
  
  
• "The report prepared by Senator Raja Zafarul Haq-led committee
  to be made public within 30 days and whoever is named in the report
  for being responsible for the change in the election oath to face
  strict action under the law." TLYRAP wants to target other
  government ministers, and make the same blasphemy charges against
  them, with the same outcome.
  
  
• "Protesters arrested between November 6 until the end of the
  sit-in from across the country to be released within one to three
  days. The cases registered against them and the house arrests be
  ended." Some protesters were arrested for violent destruction of
  property or for attack police. They will have to be released with no
  charges.
  
  
• "An inquiry board, which will include TLYR representatives,
  will be established to probe and decide what action to take against
  the government and administration officials over the operation
  conducted by security forces against protesters on Saturday, November
  25. The inquiry should be completed within 30 days and action will be
  taken against those found responsible. ..." There will be a
  kangaroo court to bring charges against police officials trying to end
  the riots.
  
  
• "The federal and provincial governments will determine and
  compensate for the loss of government and private assets incurred from
  November 6 until the end of the sit-in."

The agreement has been only partially successful in ending the sit-in.
The sit-in has ended in the capital city Islamabad and the adjoining
city Rawalpindi. However, a TLYRAP splinter group is demanding the
resignation of other ministers, and is refusing to end the sit-in in
the major city of Lahore, and so parts of that city remain paralyzed.
Geo TV (Pakistan) and Pakistan Today and Geo TV (Pakistan) and Dunya News (India)

****
**** Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah of Pakistan (TLYR or TLYRAP) has roots in Barelvi sect and murder of Salman Taseer
****

Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah of Pakistan (TLYR or TLYRAP) is a
small political group of hardline Islamists. It was little known
until it led the recent violent sit-in and forced the government to
capitulate to its demands. Media sources do not suggest that they're
a terrorist group linked to the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), but they do
advocate an extreme and radical "Sharia law" takeover of Pakistan's
government.

In particular, they advocate the complete elimination of the
persecuted Ahmadi Muslim sects in Pakistan, and possibly the Sufis as
well. The phony blasphemy charge was based on an accusation that the
modification of the oath would favor the Ahmadis.

TLYRAP came out of nowhere as a political group, but as Muslims they
come the Barelvi Sect, an offshoot of Sufism. They would probably
still be almost unknown today, but they were handed a gift last year
when Mumtaz Qadri, a Barelvi, was executed for murdering Salman Taseer
in 2011.

Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province in Pakistan, was shot
28 times in broad daylight in an open marketplace on January 4, 2011.
The killer was his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri. The motive, as described
by Qadri, was to punish Taseer for objecting to Pakistan's blasphemy
laws, and for calling for the release of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi,
who was in jail facing execution for violating the blasphemy laws.
Qadri was finally executed last year, but not before he became a
national hero for killing Taseer over a phony blasphemy charge.

Qadri was not just a national hero, but he was a Barelvi hero, and
it's that execution that led to the rise of TLYRAP. Since Qadri
justified his murder of Taseer with a phony blasphemy charge, the
TLYRAP political movement is based almost entirely on phony blasphemy
charge. Any politician that TLYRAP targets can be found to have said
or done some random thing that can be turned into a phony blasphemy
charge, and that's how the recent sit-in came about.

Pakistan as a country is becoming increasingly radicalized by Barelvi
extremism, and since some of the TLYRAP militants were armed with
weapons such as stones and bats, they are now becoming militarized.
Pakistan Today and Al Jazeera and Huffington Post(9-Jan) and La Voix Du Nord and Hudson Institute(19-Oct-2011)

Related Articles

• Widespread riots in Pakistan triggered by phony blasphemy charges (26-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Pakistan's crisis worsens as senior politician is assassinated (05-Jan-2011)
  
  
• History of blasphemy laws in UK, Ireland and Pakistan (20-Sep-2012)
  
  
• Pakistan unexpectedly executes murderer of liberal politician Salman Taseer (01-Mar-2016)
  
  
• Thousands protest violently over execution of murderer of blasphemy reformer (28-Mar-2016)
  

****
**** North Korea ballistic missiles threaten 'everywhere in the world'
****

North Korea on Wednesday morning fired a ballistic missile from an
area north of Pyongyang. The missile was launched almost vertically,
so that it would reach a high altitude, but would not travel beyond
the Sea of Japan. If used in an actual attack, it would be launched
closer to a 45 degree angle, which could carry it as far any part of
the United States mainland, according to several analysts.

According to physicist David Wright, co-director of the Union of
Concerned Scientists Global Security Program:

<QUOTE>"If these numbers are correct, then if flown on a
standard trajectory rather than this lofted trajectory, this
missile would have a range of more than 13,000 km (8,100 miles).
Such a missile would have more than enough range to reach
Washington, DC, and in fact any part of the continental United
States."<END QUOTE>

Secretary of Defense James Mattis said:

<QUOTE>"[The tests threaten] world peace, regional peace and
certainly the United States."

It went higher, frankly, than any previous shots they've taken.
It's a research and development effort on their part to continue
building ballistic missiles that can threaten everywhere in the
world basically."<END QUOTE>

President Donald Trump made an apparent threat,

<QUOTE>"We will take care of it.

It is a situation that we will handle."<END QUOTE>

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina said:

<QUOTE>"If we have to go to war to stop this, we will. If
there’s a war with North Korea, it’d be because North Korea
brought it upon itself, and we’re headed toward a war if things
don’t change."<END QUOTE>

There are some things about the ballistic test that we don't know:

• We don't know if the missile carried any payload. If the
  missile was "empty," then it would not travel as far with a
  payload.
  
  
• We know that North Korea has developed nuclear weapons, but we
  don't know whether they've developed the miniaturization technology
  necessary to fit a nuclear weapon in the nose of a ballistic
  missile.

There's another thing we don't know: We don't know what Trump meant
when he said, "We will take care of it."

North Korea's objective for the past 25-30 years was to develop
nuclear missile capability that could be used to attack the
U.S. mainland, and use it as leverage to threaten South Korea and
Japan, and he's now very close. Wired and Reuters and San Diego Union Tribune

Related Articles

• China's envoy to North Korea fails to end nuclear crisis (21-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Donald Trump in Seoul issues stern warning to North Korea -- and to China (09-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Chinese geologists warn of looming nuclear disaster from North Korean tests (01-Nov-2017)
  
  
• North Korea crisis: Would the United States sacrifice Los Angeles for Seoul? (18-Oct-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, Islamabad, Zahid Hamid, Lahore,
Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah of Pakistan,
TLYR, TLYRAP, Barelvi sect, Salman Taseer, Mumtaz Qadri,
Sufis, Ahmadis, Asia Bibi,
North Korea, David Wright, James Mattis, Lindsey Graham

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
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Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 30-Nov-17 World View -- TV audience shocked watching dramatic suicide of Croat commander convicted of war crimes in Bosnian war

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• TV audience shocked watching dramatic suicide of Croat commander convicted of war crimes in Bosnian war
  
• Croat commanders committed war crimes while trying to create a 'Greater Croatia'
  

****
**** TV audience shocked watching dramatic suicide of Croat commander convicted of war crimes in Bosnian war"
****


Slobodan Praljak, sentenced to 20 years in prison, drinks poison in a court hearing broadcast live around the world, and dies a few hours later (Getty)

Croat General Slobodan Praljak, a commander of the Bosnian Croat
forces during the Bosnian war, was sentenced on Wednesday to a 20-year
prison sentence for war crimes during the Bosnian war in the early
1990s. The sentence was handed down in the last days of the existence
of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY).

Upon hearing that his 20-year prison sentence had been upheld, Praljak
shouted, "I, Slobodan Praljak, reject the verdict! I am not a war
criminal!"

The judge ordered him to sit down. He refused to sit down, but
instead raised his hand as if to be preparing to shout something else.
But it turned out that his hand contained a small bottle. He drank
from the bottle, and declared, "What I am drinking now is poison."

Praljak's lawyer was sitting in front of Praljak, so did not actually
see him drink the poison, but she heard what he said. She shouted "My
client says that he has taken poison!"

At that, the judge ordered that the bottle be preserved. The judge
shut down the tv coverage and cleared the courtroom. An ambulance
arrived to take Praljak to a hospital, where he died several hours
later.

Reporters expressed astonishment that Praljak had been able to find a
way to bring the bottle of poison with him into the courtroom, and
then drink it on international television. The courtroom was supposed
to be extremely secure, with the same kind of inspections used in
airports. There will be a thorough investigation.

This was the last day of a court case that's been ongoing for years,
indicting 161 suspects and convicting 90 of them. The hearing was
restarted long enough to read three more judgments upholding the
sentences of other Croat commanders. Balkan Insight and AFP and Al Jazeera and Independent (London)

****
**** Croat commanders committed war crimes while trying to create a 'Greater Croatia'
****

Slobodan Praljak was a Croat commander in the Croat–Bosniak War, which
was a sub-war of the larger Bosnian war that took place in the Balkans
throughout the early 1990s, following the breakup of Yugoslavia.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Yugoslavia was in a
generational Crisis era during the early 1990s. Its previous crisis
war had been World War I, and by 1929 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had
been formed, consisting of multiple ethnic groups. World War II was
an Awakening era war for Yugoslavia, but by the 1990s, the compromises
that had been reached to settle World War I were long forgotten by the
younger generations growing up after that war. These younger
generations were willing to re-fight the bloody battles that had
killed tens of millions of people 70 years earlier.

General Slobodan Praljak was commander of the army of the Croatian
Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia (Herzeg-Bosna), which declared independence
on November 18, 1991, though it was never recognized by any other
country. The goal of the republic was to create an ethnically pure
"Greater Croatia." The goal was never achieved, and Herzeg-Bosnia
disappeared around April, 1994.

During that three year period, according to the indictment, Slobodan
Praljak incited political, ethnic and religious hatred and had
recourse to force, intimidation and terror, notably by mass arrests
during which people were killed. He reportedly participated in the
establishment and expansion of a system of concentration camps and
other detention centers. He also was said to have inflicted cruel
treatment on Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), by arranging for their
expulsion and forced transfer and by submitting those imprisoned to
forced labor. The activities included murders, rape, sexual assault,
the destruction of property and the deportation of Bosniaks.

In 2013, The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) found Praljak and five other Croatian commanders guilty of
these war crimes, and sentenced them to a total of 111 years in jail.
The sentences were appealed, and on Wednesday the sentences were
reaffirmed.

Prior to the sentencing, Croatia's interior minister Davor Bozinovic
said:

<QUOTE>"I expect that [the six officials’ guilt] won’t be
proven because the Republic of Croatia wasn’t a party in the war
in Bosnia and Herzegovina and I hope for a verdict of
acquittal."<END QUOTE>

The court found that this claim was clearly false.

Although the Bosnian war has officially ended, feeling among all the
different ethnic groups in the Balkans are still extremely
acrimonious. I discovered this earlier this year when I wrote a
couple of articles on Macedonia and Albania,
and received dozens of the most acrimonious and vitriolic
comments that any of my articles have ever received. These comments
came from all sides -- especially the Macedonians, the Greeks, the
Albanians and the Bulgarians.

Many people believe that after two world wars in the 20th century,
there will never be another European war. I can assure you that's far
from the truth. This multi-year trial of Croat commanders that ended
on Wednesday was supposed to help resolve old feelings and hatreds,
those vitriolic hatreds still exist in full force throughout the
Balkans, and will result in war when the time is right. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
and Balkan Insight (29-May-2013) and Trial International and Balkan Insight

Related Articles

• European officials worry that Macedonia's chaos could destabilize the Balkans (07-May-2017)
  
  
• Peaceful protests in Bosnia turn into widespread violence (09-Feb-2014)
  
  
• Bosnia commemorates the 1995 Srebrenica massacre (12-Jul-2013)
  
  
• Bosnia still bitterly divided as Srebrenica massacre is commemorated (11-Jul-2011)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Bosnian war, Slobodan Praljak,
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY,
Croat–Bosniak War, Yugoslavia, Herzeg-Bosnia, Herzeg-Bosna,
Davor Bozinovic, Macedonia, Albania

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
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Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 1-Dec-17 World View -- European-African summit calls for end to slavery auctions in Libya

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• European-African summit calls for end to slavery auctions in Libya
  
• AU-EU Summit creates task force to solve the slave trade problem
  
• China drives thousands of Beijing migrants out into the winter cold
  

****
**** European-African summit calls for end to slavery auctions in Libya
****


Guinea's President Alpha Conde, front row left, speaks with Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, front row middle, and African Union Commission chairman Moussa Faki, front row center, during group photo on Wednesday at AU-EU Summit. (AP)

The surreptitiously obtained CNN video that we reported two weeks ago
that portrayed slave auctions in
Libya have continued to have political repercussions in Europe and
Africa, with political leaders expressing how shocked, shocked they
are that these auctions are still going on after they had supposedly
ended in the 1800s with the abolition of slavery in many countries
around the world.

CNN obtained the video using concealed cameras at a slave auction just
outside Tripoli, the capital city of Libya. In one case, the
auctioneer says, "Does anybody need a digger? This is a digger, a big
strong man, he'll dig. What am I bid, what am I bid?" The man is
auctioned off for $400-800.

The video about the slave trade and slave auctions triggered large
sometimes violent protests in front of Libya's embassy in Paris.

As it happens, an African Union - European Union (AU-EU) summit was
already scheduled to take place in Côte d'Ivoire on November 29-30.
The summit brought together more than 80 leaders from countries on
both continents to discuss such subjects as investments in Africa,
trade, and provided humanitarian aid, with a particular emphasis on
investing in youth.

However, the intended agenda was hijacked by the slave trade issue.
It's estimated that 400,000 to 700,000 migrants are trapped in Libya,
having travelled there in the hope of reaching Europe. Instead,
they've been put into refugee camps, in compliance with an agreement
that Italy made with many Libyan warlords and governments to prevent
them from traveling to Europe. But the refugee camps have been filled
to overflowing, and the excess tens or hundreds of thousands of
migrants and refugees are being auctioned off as slaves.

Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari said, "Some Nigerians were sold
like goats for a few dollars in Libya."

One migrant from Cameroon, Chancelier Deuda, said:

<QUOTE>"Libya is a country at war, despite the semblance of
peace. A black person is seen as merchandise, he is sold like
chicken. Migrants on their way to Libya are kidnapped. They are
kidnapped when they are walking and sold for as little as 300
Libyan Dinars (216 USD)."<END QUOTE>

Another Cameroonian migrant, Emile Monkam, said:

<QUOTE>"Do not take the Libyan route, it’s not a good idea
and you definitely won’t like what you will find. You will meet
people who, I don’t even know how to qualify them, but those Arabs
– and I am speaking from experience since I have in different
parts of Maghreb region, but those Arabs are not people who should
live on earth."<END QUOTE>

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said:

<QUOTE>"It’s very important that we simply support Africans
to put a stop to illegal migration, so people don’t have to either
suffer in horrible camps in Libya or are even being
traded."<END QUOTE>

Ghana's president Nana Akufo-Addo said:

<QUOTE>"The current slave auctions of Africans in Libya are
not only gross and scandalous abuses of human rights, but are also
mockeries of the alleged solidarity of African nations grouped in
the African Union (AU), of which Libya is a member.

I continue to be puzzled as to the vehemence with which so-called
social democrats oppose or attempt to undermine measures designed
to address poverty. Their demagoguery and opportunism will always
be exposed."<END QUOTE>

The outrage expressed by these African leaders is pretty phony, since
the slave auctions had been reported for a long time. The CNN video,
however, triggered the large anti-slavery protests, especially in
Paris.

The outrage also raises the usual questions that are asked at times
like this: Why is Africa blaming Europe for slavery in Africa? Why
can't Africa solve this problem on its own? Why is more Western aid
always demanded, when decades of Western aid hasn't helped in the
past? European Council and RFI and Daily Post (Nigeria) and NY Daily News and Africa News

****
**** AU-EU Summit creates task force to solve the slave trade problem
****

After expressing universal outrage about the slave trade and slave
auctions, the national leaders proceeded to offer a "solution" which
has no chance of doing anything to solve the problem.

The objective of the AU-EU summit agreement is that all
400,000-700,000 migrants that are trapped in Libya are to be sent back
to their countries of origin.

So, for example, 3,800 migrants in just one of the dozens of camps in
Tripoli alone will be sent back to their home countries immediately --
assuming that their home countries will take them. Some 250 migrants
from Cameroon have already been returned home.

As for the other hundreds of thousands of migrants trapped in Libya, a
task force will be formed, with members from the EU, the AU, and the
United Nations. The task force will aim to:

• save and protect lives of migrants and refugees, in particular
  in Libya;
  
• accelerate assisted voluntary returns to countries of origin;
  
• speed up the resettlement of those in need of international
  protection.

It's obvious that this task force will do little more than hold
meetings and express outrage. With 400,000-700,000 migrants trapped
in Libya, the slave trade and slave auctions will continue as before.

We're seeing massive refugee flows all around the world, with hundreds
of thousands or millions of refugees in each of Libya, Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), South Sudan, Syria, Burma (Myanmar) -- just
to name the places that I've recently written articles about. These
huge refugee flows are destabilizing entire regions, depleting
resources and triggering xenophobia and violence. This is one more
factor that's leading to World War III, just as similar massive
refugee flows in the 1930s led to World War II. AP and
Bloomberg and RFI

Related Articles

• Italy is blamed for shocking increase in slave trade in Libya (22-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Italy's deals with Libya's warlords substantially reduce flow of refugees (19-Oct-2017)
  
  
• EU countries refuse to help Italy deal with massive refugee crisis (16-Jul-2017)
  
  
• Italy begs for help after 12,000 migrants arrive in four days (30-Jun-2017)
  

****
**** China drives thousands of Beijing migrants out into the winter cold
****


A migrant family is leaving Beijing under a government-mandated evacuation. They had 15 mins to clear all their belongings. Behind them is a big banner saying the great 'Xi Jinping new era'. (Twitter)

With huge migrant flows destabilizing many parts of the world, it's
interesting that a related story is going on in China's capital,
Beijing.

After a shantytown fire on November 18 killed 19 people, the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) is using the fire as an opportunity to evict
thousands of Beijing migrants from their homes, and to demolish their
homes.

Many of these people have lived in these homes for 10-20 years. They
migrated to Beijing years ago, and they were laborers who built
Beijing into the huge metropolis that it is today.

The evictions are being called "cruel" even among the usually obedient
and compliant Chinese, because they're given only a few hours or a
couple of days to collect their belongings and move somewhere else --
and for most there's really nowhere else to go to escape the winter
cold.

"Once I built a tower to the sun, bricks and mortar and lime. Once I
built a tower, now it's done. Brother can you spare a dime?" (Rudy
Vallee song from 1931.) Shanghaiist and South China Morning Post and Global Times (Beijing) and YouTube


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, AU-EU Summit, African Union, CNN,
Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari,
Cameroon, Chancelier Deuda, Emile Monkam,
Germany, Angela Merkel, Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo,
China, Beijing

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[Warren Dew]

What?  Merkel isn't sticking to her guns on her freedom of movement ideals?  I guess she only wants that kind of disruption in the EU.

[David Horn]

(12-01-2017, 10:52 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: What?  Merkel isn't sticking to her guns on her freedom of movement ideals?  I guess she only wants that kind of disruption in the EU.

Merkel grew up in the old East Germany, so her ideals are not surprising.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 2-Dec-17 World View -- UN asks for 2018 increase in humanitarian aid despite compassion fatigue

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• UN asks for 2018 increase in humanitarian aid despite compassion fatigue
  
• Humanitarian crises continue to grow year after year
  

****
**** UN asks for 2018 increase in humanitarian aid despite compassion fatigue
****


Funding gap for humanitarian aid for each year 2007-2017, showing gap between needed funds and received funds. HRP = Humanitarian Response Plans.

The United Nations is asking the world community for an increase in
donations for humanitarian aid, requesting $22.5 billion for 2018,
above the $22 billion originally requested for 2017. More than $10
billion is needed to address the humanitarian crises in Syria and
Yemen alone.

According to the "Global Humanitarian Overview 2018" report published
on Friday:

<QUOTE>"Many humanitarian crises have become so protracted
that they seem permanent. Nineteen of the 21 humanitarian response
plans presented in this overview are for humanitarian crises that
have been running for five years or more. Three have had
humanitarian plans and appeals each year for at least 18 years
(Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Somalia).

The steep rise in funding requirements over the years is mainly
driven by a set of large-scale protracted crises with humanitarian
funding requirements over a billion dollars per year (primarily
the Syria crisis, Yemen and South Sudan).

Food insecurity is also often a consequence of protracted
conflict. In late 2017, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network
(FEWSNet) highlighted 12 countries in which at least a
half-million people will need emergency food assistance (Yemen,
Ethiopia, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, DR
Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Central African Republic and Niger). Of
these, five are rated in the ‘emergency’ phase of food insecurity,
one step short of the worst phase of ‘famine’. Four (Yemen, South
Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria) are still at risk of famine
conditions."<END QUOTE>

In the request for 2017 (the current year), the $22 billion was
requested to\help 92.8 million people in need. Over the course of the
year 2017, additional crises increased the need for $24 billion, to
help 105.1 million people.

However, there's little chance and the UN will get the funding that
it's requesting. The number of humanitarian crises around the world
has been increasing sharply. This requires a lot more humanitarian
aid, but it also creates a lot more "compassion fatigue" among
potential donors, who (correctly) see the demands for humanitarian aid
increasing constantly, but then draw the conclusion that they are no
longer willing to respond with money.

The graph above shows the funding requested (black line) and funding
received (blue line). As the graph shows, the amount of funding
requested has been increasing much faster than the amount of funding
received.

So in 2017, $22 billion was initially requested, rising to $24 billion
during the year, but the actual funding received was just $12.6
billion, or just 52% of the amount needed, according to the UN.
Relief Web and Global Humanitarian Overview 2018 (PDF)

****
**** Humanitarian crises continue to grow year after year
****

As you can see from the above graph, the amount of funding requested
went up during the financial crisis until 2010, then fell and leveled
off, and then began to surge in 2012. This was the time following the
"Arab Spring," when the Mideast and other places in the world began to
seriously destabilize. In the Mideast, the war in Libya began, and
the genocide in Syria by the Bashar al-Assad also began. More crises
began in the years that followed. In Central Asia, the Burma genocide
and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims began. In North America,
the Haiti earthquake was an enormous disaster. In Africa, wars in
South Sudan, Mali, and Central African Republic started, followed by
the war in Yemen.

On top of that, there were continuing humanitarian crises in some
countries. In three countries, they had lasted for at least 18 years:
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Somalia.

I remember reading an article in 2004 claiming that the number of wars
in the world was at the lowest in history. That was the end of the
generational Unraveling era, a time during the 1990s when the world
was run by the Silent generation of people who had grown up in the
1930s. They had lived through World War II, and had learned the
dangers of extreme nationalism, xenophobia, large refugee flows, and
unmet humanitarian crises. Since the world leaders were well aware of
these dangers, they made sure that they wouldn't spiral out of
control.

Since 2003-4, most of the world has been in a generational Crisis era,
with the survivors of WW II disappearing. And now, about 14 years
into a Crisis era, we see all the things that led to WW II occurring
again, leading up to a new world war. The things that the World War
II survivors devoted their lives to keep from happening again are now
happening again and spiraling out of control.

In yesterday's World View article

on the rise of slavery and slave auctions in Libya, I described how
huge migration flows in Africa, the Mideast, Central Asia, and even in
Beijing China are destabilizing major regions of the world, depleting
resources and triggering xenophobia and violence. At the same time,
"compassion fatigue" means that less aid is available for desperate
people.

All of these factors -- slave auctions, growing refugee flows, growing
humanitarian crises -- are factors that have occurred in the 1930s and
prior to other major wars in history, and they are only going to
continue growing, and lead to a new world war.

In 2018, expect more countries to become unstable, more refugee flows,
more slave auctions, and more humanitarian crises, and expect more
intolerance and political bickering by politicians overwhelmed by the
crises and looking for easy solutions that don't exist. From the
point of view of Generational Dynamics, that's what always happens in
a generational Crisis era. AFP and Al Jazeera and Reuters

Related Articles

• European-African summit calls for end to slavery auctions in Libya (01-Dec-2017)
  
  
• The Gathering Storm: The accelerating surge in refugees, slaves and terrorists (20-Jun-2015)
  
  
• Afghan and Eritrean migrants clash at site of 'Jungle' in Calais France (24-Aug-2017)
  
  
• Xenophobic violence against migrants returns to South Africa (27-Feb-2017)
  
  
• Russian and Syrian war crimes are 'weaponizing' the refugee crisis for Europe (02-Mar-2016)
  
  
• Thousands of Bangladeshi and Burma Rohingya migrants stranded at sea in southeast Asia (16-May-2015)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, United Nations, Global Humanitarian Overview,
Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Burma, Myanmar,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Somalia

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John J. Xenakis
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Phone: 617-864-0010
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Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 3-Dec-17 World View -- Yemen war changes direction with collapse of Iran-backed Houthi coalition

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Yemen war changes direction with collapse of Iran-backed Houthi coalition
  
• The Houthi-Saleh 'alliance of convenience' crumbles into violence
  

****
**** Yemen war changes direction with collapse of Iran-backed Houthi coalition
****


Tens of thousands gather in Sanaa to demand an end to the clashes between the Houthis and their former ally, Ali Abdullah Saleh (AFP)

Last month, Saudi Arabia imposed a sea, land and air blockade on
Yemen, taking a country which was already in a major humanitarian
crisis into an enormous humanitarian disaster. The major effect of
the blockade has been to prevent humanitarian aid, including food,
medicines and fuel into the country. Of the 25 million population, 20
million rely on humanitarian assistance, and 7-8 million are now
facing full-scale famine and starvation as a result of the blockade on
humanitarian aid. Furthermore, without fuel, the water pumps in many
cities can no longer operate, forcing people to drink filthy water,
adding to Yemen's huge cholera epidemic, hitting close to one million
people.

Since 2015, the tribal civil war in Yemen has been largely a proxy war
between Saudi Arabia and Iran, especially the Iran-backed Houthi
rebels. The war dangerously escalated a month ago when the Houthis
launched a ballistic missile, undoubtedly supplied by Iran, that
reached the King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, about 800
km from the Yemen border. The Saudis reacted with the blockade,
giving as a reason the need to prevent the Houthis from importing more
Iranian weapons systems.

Beyond blocking Iranian weapons imports, it wasn't clear whether the
Saudis had any further objectives, and indeed some NGO leaders were
accusing the Saudis of using "denial of aid" as a "weapon of war."

If being a weapon of war was part of the Saudi plan, then it appears
to have been successful. There's been a major split among the
militias in the Houthi coalition.

There have been four days of increasingly violent clashes between the
the two major militias, one led by Houthi leader Abdel-Malek
al-Houthi, and the other led by former Yemen president Ali Abdullah
Saleh, who is leading some local militias who had previously been
allied with al-Houthi.

After the clashes began, tens of thousands of people filled the
streets in Yemen demanding an end to the fighting. After four days of
clashes, it was apparently too much for Saleh, who practically begged
the Saudis for a ceasefire:

<QUOTE>"I call on our brothers in neighboring countries
... to stop their aggression and lift the blockade. They need to
lift the blockade and open the airports, and allow food and
medicine to enter the country. We will open a new page with them
for dialog. What is happening in Yemen is enough."<END QUOTE>

A spokesman for the Houthis said that "Saleh's speech is a coup
against our alliance and partnership... and exposed the deception of
those who claim to stand against aggression." In addition, al-Houthi
responded on television, calling Saleh a traitor and describing his
appeal to Saudi Arabia as "treason to the country and a stab in the
back." BBC and Washington Post and Reuters and Bloomberg and AP

****
**** The Houthi-Saleh 'alliance of convenience' crumbles into violence
****

South Yemen and North Yemen were two separate countries until they
unified in 1990 under the leadership of Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh
ruled until 2011, when he was ousted as an outcome of the "Arab
Spring" that affected countries throughout the region. Saleh was
forced to turn the office of president over to his vice president,
Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.

In effect, Saleh refused to give up power, and he formed an "alliance
of convenience" with the Houthis. Saleh and the Houthis have never
really gotten along. During the two decades that Saleh was president,
he fought six different wars against the Houthis. on September 21,
2014, Saleh and the Houthis captured Sanaa from Hadi's forces. Hadi
was forced to flee Sanaa, and has been living in exile in Saudi Arabia
for two years. From the point of view of the international community,
Hadi is still president of Yemen.

On Saturday, Saleh's foreign minister was interviewed on the BBC, and
he said that the alliance with the Houthis had to end because Houthis
were forming a "state within a state," similar to the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a military state within a state
within Iran.

In 2005, Saleh and the Houthis had created an alliance with the
nominal objective of forming a unity government that both groups could
lead equally. But in the last year, the Houthis have been gaining
power in Sanaa, and Saleh has been losing power. Furthermore, there
has been rising popular discontent with the Houthis, and that
discontent has increased in the last month with the Saudi blockade.
Some reports indicate that Saleh has been talking to the Saudis
through back channels for a while, so it's even possible that this
whole scenario, starting with the blockade, was planned in advance,
and triggered by the Houthis' launch of the ballistic missile at
Riyadh.

Since Saleh's call for a ceasefire, the Saudi airstrikes on Sanaa have
almost stopped. According to reports, Saleh has promised the Saudis
that if they agree to the ceasefire and to lift the blockade, then he
will undertake to defeat the Houthis in Sanaa, and drive them back
into their northeast stronghold, as he had to do several times when he
was president. After that, Saleh says that he and the Saudis can
talk, and bring Yemen back to be "normal" again, with him in some sort
of leadership position.

That's actually the optimistic scenario. A more likely scenario is
there's another front in the war, and that the clashes between Saleh
and the Houthis will become just another war within the Yemen war, the
war will continue in a different form. AFP and Gulf News (Dubai) and CNN and Stratfor

Related Articles:

• Yemen's Houthi missile attack on Riyadh called a 'dangerous escalation' (06-Nov-2017)
  
  
• War in Yemen expands as Shia al-Houthis threaten new Sunni provinces (05-Jan-2015)
  
  
• Saudi Arabia says it will 'end major combat operations' in Yemen (18-Mar-2016)
  
  
• Yemen's president Saleh hangs on to power as clashes spread to other towns (31-May-2011)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran,
Houthis, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, Ali Abdullah Saleh,
Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, King Khalid International Airport,
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 4-Dec-17 World View -- Cameroon's English-speaking provinces on the verge of full-scale violence

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Cameroon's English-speaking provinces on the verge of full-scale violence
  
• Cameroon and Paul Biya behave typically following a generational crisis civil war
  

****
**** Cameroon's English-speaking provinces on the verge of full-scale violence
****


People of the Anglophone town of Eyumojock in a tense, angry standoff with police following the killing of some police officers on Wednesday (Cameroon Concord)

Separatists in the Southern Cameroons, the Anglophone
(English-speaking) regions of Cameroon, seeking independence from the
Francophone (French-speaking) government, killed four policemen and
two soldiers in two attacks in the last week. The security forces had
been sent into the Anglophone regions to try to suppress further
unrest, but separatists claim that they have set up checkpoints on
roads as symbols of Francophone occupation. The activists are
demanding for the Southern Cameroons to secede, and create an
independent nation called Ambazonia.

Ben Kuah, the chairman of the military wing of the secessionist group
Ambazonian Governing Council (AGC) said:

<QUOTE>"One of the main objectives is to clear the
checkpoints that they have put on our roads. They are the symbols
of occupation."<END QUOTE>

Cameroon's president Paul Biya promised retaliation for the attacks:

<QUOTE>"I think things are now perfectly clear to
everyone. Cameroon is the victim of repeated attacks.

Faced with these attacks of aggression, I assure the Cameroonian
people that all measures are being taken to end these criminals’
ability to do harm."<END QUOTE>

Cameroon's Minister of Defense Beti Assomo said:

<QUOTE>"Following the president of the Republic, the Head of
the armed forces’ declaration after the repeated attacks and
killings in the country, that are claimed by secessionist
movements, we are expected to arrive at concrete measures for the
immediate application of the strategy of the heads in the
army. And the process is going to continue till this situation
that we are experiencing is eradicated."<END QUOTE>

The violence started in 2016, but at the start is one almost entirely
one-sided violence, with the Francophone security forces violently
attacking peaceful Anglophone protesters.

In 2016, the peaceful protests began with claims by Anglophone lawyers
that the legal and court systems are biased toward Francophones, with
many laws passed without even being translated into English.
Anglophone teachers joined in, protesting that all courses in the
schools had to be taught in French, and that any use of English was
forbidden. The Francophone police responded by severely beating
several protesters, and shooting two of them dead.

The Francophone government has done some really stupid things in the
past year, apparently in the belief that they can end the peaceful
protests by violently attacking the protesters. The security forces
repeatedly used tear gas, gunfire, beatings and jailings against the
protesters. The government shut down the internet in the Southern
Cameroons for several months, in the moronic belief that they would
stop protesting if they didn't have the internet available to do their
jobs and earn a livelihood.

Government idiocy reached a height in August, when the government
deployed 400 additional police to the Anglophone regions to force
schoolchildren to go to school. There were still protests going on
over the schools being forced to teach all subjects in French, but
instead of simply allowing some courses like geography and math to be
taught in English, they sent the police out to drag little children to
school.

The violence took a particularly dangerous turn on September 22, when
activist forces began using small bombs to target local security
forces. On October 1, separatists staged a massive march, and
declared the independence of Ambazonia. In the increasingly violent
Francophone government crackdown that followed, hundreds of people
were arrested, and helicopter gunships were used to fire on innocent
civilians and kill them. At least 5,000 people have fled across the
border to neighboring Nigeria to escape the violence.

On Sunday, state radio said, "Paul Biya has declared war on these
terrorists who seek secession," and that a large-scale military
operation was being prepared, indicating that a full-scale violent
conflict is about to begin. AFP and Cameroon Concord and VOA

Related Articles

• Deadly violence increases in English-speaking regions of Cameroon (12-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Cameroon police shoot and kill English-speaking protesters on Sunday (02-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Cameroon's army to force English-speaking children to attend school (31-Aug-2017)
  
  
• Cameroon: One person killed in English-speaking vs French-speaking civil unrest (23-Nov-2016)
  

****
**** Cameroon and Paul Biya behave typically following a generational crisis civil war
****

As regular readers are aware, we've discovered some patterns that
countries predictably follow during the generational Awakening and
Unraveling eras, one or two generation past the end of the preceding
generational Crisis war.

In America, the Awakening era was in the 1960s, following World War
II, with massive student protests in colleges and racial protests on
the streets of Los Angeles, Chicago, and many other cities. The
government did not use gunfire and helicopter gunships to stop the
violence, and the only jailings were for specific property crimes.
The government continued in an orderly constitutional manner, with
presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

Cameroon's last generational crisis war was "UPC Revolt," 1956-1960,
which was a bloody civil war by communists attacking the Anglophone
"British Cameroons" colony and the Francophone "French Cameroun"
colony. The outcome was a single independent country, Cameroon, which
merged the British and French colonies together.

Paul Biya was born in 1933, and became president in 1982. He
consolidated his power by orchestrating a fake coup, giving him an
opportunity to eliminate all his rivals, and making him, in effect, a
dictator.

During the generational Awakening and Unraveling eras that followed
independence, Cameroon had the same student protests and other
protests that every country has, one or two generations after the end
of the preceding crisis war. But there's a sharp distinction when the
preceding crisis war was an internal civil war. In this case, the
government refuses to cede power to the opposition, fearing a renewal
of the civil war, and uses murder, rape, torture and jailings
arbitrarily against peaceful protesters in the opposition.

I've described this in numerous countries where the Awakening era
follows a generational crisis civil war, including Pierre Nkurunziza
in Burundi, Paul Kagame in Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Robert
Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Joseph Kabila in DRC, or, outside of Africa,
Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Hun Sen in Cambodia.

Paul Biya, who has been president in Cameroon for 34 years, is simply
following this same pattern, the same sociopathic violent behavior
against a peaceful opposition to remain in power at all costs. If
you'd like a simple psychology explanation for why this happens, I
will give you mine: When the leader of a country participated in an
internal crisis civil war, and during the war was responsible for
ordering the rape, torture and slaughter of other people who are
essentially his neighbors, then he's traumatized for life, and
develops the sociopathy that we've described. But whatever the
reason, we've now seen this in one country after another, and the
phenomenon is being firmly supported by the research. Quartz and Crisis Group (19-Oct)

Related Articles

• Cambodia dissolves the opposition political party so that Hun Sen can be reelected unopposed (17-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Burundi's Hutu government leaves International Criminal Court to avoid crimes against humanity charges (28-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Burma's (Myanmar's) leaders may be inspired by Pol Pot's Cambodian 'Killing Fields' genocide (29-Sep-2017)
  
  
• Mainstream media frets over Steve Bannon, the Fourth Turning, and Donald Trump (09-Feb-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Cameroon, Paul Biya, Southern Cameroons,
Anglophone, Francophone, Ambazonia, Ambazonian Governing Council, AGC,
Beti Assomo

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John J. Xenakis
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Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 5-Dec-17 World View -- Three crises accelerate: Yemen's Saleh killed, Brexit collapses and North Korea war looms

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Yemen's former president Ali Abdullah Saleh killed in Houthi ambush
  
• US officials plan for military strike on North Korea and war
  
• Brexit negotiations collapse over Ireland border issue
  

****
**** Yemen's former president Ali Abdullah Saleh killed in Houthi ambush
****


Ali Abdullah Saleh

A web site reader posted this message on Sunday:

<QUOTE>"Every day astounds me more than the last. I suppose
that's one of the distinguishing features of "times like these."
In Generational Crisis times, time seems to be compressed. One
'panic' or another is just hours away, it seems, and great swathes
of 'public opinion' change course mid-air like a disturbed
mega-flock of starlings."<END QUOTE>

On Monday, the time compression seemed to increase, with three crises
all seeming to accelerate at the same time on the same day: Yemen,
North Korea, and Brexit.

It was just two days ago that I wrote a lengthy article about a big
change in the Yemen war, which has become a proxy war between Iran and
Saudi Arabia. Previously, the Iran-backed Houthis were allied with
Yemen's former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, fighting against the
militias supporting Saudi Arabia.

Saleh has always been a master politician at deftly switching sides,
forming alliances of convenience, and then betraying his former
allies. Last week, he performed this act again, breaking his alliance
with the Houthis, and forming an alliance with the Saudis. But this
turned out to be his last act.

The Houthis were furious at Saleh's betrayal and "treason," and
apparently took revenge on him on Monday, when he was ambushed and
killed in his convoy at a checkpoint in Yemen's capital city Sanaa.

Analysts are saying that this is a victory for the Houthis and Iran,
but it also weakens the Houthis in the sense that it will further
split the tribes previously allied with the Houthis. In particular,
in some scenarios, many of Saleh's militias that were fighting
alongside the Houthis in the past may attack the Houthis for revenge,
and firmly side with the Saudis. Another scenario is that the
pro-Saleh tribes will splinter and become ineffective.

The effects of Saleh's death will depend on what the Saudis and
Iranians do next. Saleh's son in Saudi Arabia is being proposed as
his replacement. The only thing that's certain is that Saleh's death
guarantees more chaos.

The death of Saleh is expected to complicate Tuesday's meeting of the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The GCC is an alliance of six Arab
countries -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates (UAE) -- on the Arabian Gulf. The GCC is already
splintered because of Saudi Arabia's air, land and sea blockade on
another GCC member, Qatar. Kuwait has been acting as a mediator, and
some analysts hoped that Tuesday's meeting would be used to negotiate
an end to the blockade of Qatar. However, Tuesday's agenda is likely
to be hijacked by the Yemen issue after the death of Saleh. Some
analysts are saying that the GCC is near complete collapse.
National Yemen and BBC and Al Jazeera

Related Articles:

• Yemen war changes direction with collapse of Iran-backed Houthi coalition (03-Dec-2017)
  
  
• UAE official says Arab blockade was engineered to prevent Qatar hosting 2022 World Cup (10-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Yemen's president Saleh hangs on to power as clashes spread to other towns (31-May-2011)
  

****
**** US officials plan for military strike on North Korea and war
****

Over the weekend, the full realization of what the U.S. is facing from
North Korea became more clear and more stark. It's clear that for
three decades, US administrations have simply appeased the North
Koreans, falling time after time for North Korean promises that they
had no intention of keeping, just as Hitler was planning for
full-scale war as he promised "peace in our time."

If we continue on the same path as the last three decades, then:

• North Korea will develop ballistic missile and nuclear
  weapons capability allowing them to strike American cities
  with a nuclear weapon.
  
• That will be achieved in 10-18 months
  
• But that won't be the end of it. NK will manufacture an
  entire fleet of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
  
• NK will continue developing the capability to launch
  these ballistic missiles from submarines.
  
• NK's ballistic missiles would be able to reach any target
  in the world, including Europe, the Mideast, Asia and Australia.
  
• NK would sell this technology to other rogue nations,
  including Iran, Venezuela and allies in Africa.

Many people believe that China and Russia would welcome these
developments by the North Koreans, since the missiles would be pointed
at America, not at China or Russia.

The administration seems to be signaling every day that we're one day
closer to war because of the North Korean threat.

Over the weekend, H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s national security
adviser, said:

<QUOTE>"The greatest immediate threat to the United States
and to the world is the threat posed by the rogue regime in North
Korea and his continued efforts to develop a long range nuclear
capability. ...

I think [the threat] is increasing every day. It means we’re in a
race. We’re in a race to be able to solve this problem.

There are ways to address this problem short of armed conflict,
but it is a race because he’s getting closer and closer and
there’s not much time left."<END QUOTE>

Sen. Lindsey Graham on CBS News said that the American military should
start preparing for war:

<QUOTE>"We're getting close to a military conflict because
North Korea's marching toward marrying up the technology of an
I.C.B.M. with a nuclear weapon on top that cannot only get to
America but deliver the weapon. We're running out of
time. McMaster said that yesterday. I'm going to urge the Pentagon
not to send any more dependents to South Korea.

South Korea should be an unaccompanied tour. It's crazy to send
spouses and children to South Korea, given the provocation of
North Korea. So I want them to stop sending dependents. And I
think it's now time to start moving American dependents out of
South Korea. ...

[Trump has] got the best national security team of anybody I've
seen since I've been in Washington. The president, himself, early
on, made the right decision: 'I'm not going to allow North Korea
to hit America with a nuclear weapon. We're not going to live
under that threat. If I have to go to war, and I don't want to, to
stop it, I will.'

Everybody before President Trump screwed it up, including
Republicans. Now we need to get it right. And I think he's got the
right approach. He's got the right team. I hope China will help
us. We're running out of time."<END QUOTE>

What would a military strike on North Korea look like? On Fox
Business Network on Monday, retired army lieutenant colonel Ralph
Peters described it as follow (my transcription):

<QUOTE>"This is not a question of a few surgical strikes. If
we wanted to destroy, DESTROY their capability to build a fleet of
ICBMs, with mated nuclear warheads, it would require an intensive
campaign, primarily, not exclusively from the air. It would run a
minimum of several weeks, possibly months - you can't predict
these things once you start pulling triggers.

And ultimately the question is the regime in North Korea: can,
should it survive?

So it's not just shooting a couple of launchers, knocking out some
missiles. You have to go after deep underground bunkers, research
facilities. You have to go after command and control, air
defense, intelligence, early warning. And so this is real war. If
we had to address the North Korea problem militarily, it's a
war. ...

Is it better to put American cities at risk of nuclear catastrophe
or at least nuclear blackmail, or to act while we
can?"<END QUOTE>

The logic of the imminent North Korean threat and these statements
from American officials is that a war is likely within 6-18 months.

South Korea and the US are holding joint military drills, the largest
ever, involving 12,000 US troops. There are also 230 US fighter jets,
including the brand new F-35 Lightning, two dozen stealth jets, and
over 200 fighters and bombers. North Korea has called it a
"preparation for war," and threatened unspecified action. Fox News and CBS News

Related Articles

• China's envoy to North Korea fails to end nuclear crisis (21-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Donald Trump in Seoul issues stern warning to North Korea -- and to China (09-Nov-2017)
  
  
• North Korea crisis: Would the United States sacrifice Los Angeles for Seoul? (18-Oct-2017)
  

****
**** Brexit negotiations collapse over Ireland border issue
****


Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, Carwyn Jones, First Minister of Wales, and Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London all tweet that if Northern Ireland is going to be favorably treated, then they must be favorably treated. (BBC)

Until midday Monday, the European media were reporting that a
breakthrough in the Brexit negotiations between the UK and EU was
imminent. The reason that a breakthrough was predicted was because UK
prime minister Theresa May had repeatedly capitulated to the demands
of the EU on the three major "Phase I" issues.

The first Phase I issue was the "divorce bill," the amount that the UK
will have to pay the EU to leave, an amount as high as &euro;60
billion. UK politician Nigel Farage, who spearheaded the Brexit
movement, famously once said that "the EU can whistle for that money."
Over a period of months, May had to agree to pay something, then had
to agree to pay &euro;20 billion, and finally last week agreed to pay
about &euro;50 billion. The EU considered this to be enough of a
commitment for the time being.

The second issue was the treatment of EU citizens working in the UK.
EU officials said that May had made significant concessions,
and that would be enough for the time being. However, the
role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in rejecting UK laws
is still an open question, as it has been all along.

The third issue is the problem of the border between Northern Ireland,
which is part of the UK, separating it from the Republic of Ireland,
which is part of the EU. When the UK leaves the EU, there would have
be border controls between Ireland and Northern Ireland, a concept
that almost everyone rejects, because any border controls are thought
likely to result in a renewal of "The Troubles," the decades of
violence between the indigenous ethnic Irish Gaelics (Catholic,
Republican) and the descendants of the English and Scottish invaders
(Protestant, Unionist).

Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland has stated
unequivocally that he would not approve any Brexit agreement that
reinstated border controls. The EU has stated unequivocally that the
EU would not agree to any proposal that Varadkar rejected, since
Ireland would be part of the EU after Brexit, and Northern Ireland and
the UK would not.

So apparently Theresa May's staff came up with some language late last
week that seemed to satisfy everyone. The details are unknown, but it
would provide some kind of special regulatory status to Northern
Ireland that would allow the borders to remain open. It was that
level of agreement that led the media to expect a breakthrough on
Monday, and Theresa May went off the Brussels to sign the deal.

While in Brussels, Theresa May placed a phone call to the Arlene
Foster, the leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party
(DUP), and Foster vetoed the plan. She said:

<QUOTE>"Northern Ireland must leave the EU on the same terms
as the rest of the UK. We will not accept any form of regulatory
divergence which separates Northern Ireland economically or
politically from the rest of the United Kingdom."<END QUOTE>

The DUP is a very small but critical part of Theresa May's governing
coalition, but if they turn against her, then there will be new
elections in Britain. This is somewhat comical, since it's an outcome
nobody wants. May and her Tory party would probably lose the election
to the Labor Party, and the ultra-leftist Jeremy Corbyn would become
prime minister. Corbyn supports the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in
Ireland, which is the DUP's traditional enemy. Would Corbyn like to
be prime minister and take over Brexit negotiations with the EU? My
guess is that he enjoys seeing May take all the flak in trying
to solve the intractable Ireland problem.

On top of the veto by the DUP, the leaders of Scotland and Wales, and
the mayor of London all tweeted that if Northern Ireland gets special
treatment, then they should get special treatment too. Their tweets
are shown in the above graphic.

EU and UK leaders hope that these problems can all be resolved by the
December 14 summit meeting in Brussels. If so, then negotiations will
move onto trade issues, and those issues will be far more difficult to
resolve than the three Phase I issues. It's very hard to get past the
feeling that Brexit is a complete disaster for the UK, and probably
for the EU as well. Irish Times and BBC

Related Articles

• The issue of Ireland's border threatens to collapse EU-UK Brexit negotiations. (28-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Fallout from Brexit: Impact on geopolitics, economics, and stock markets (25-Jun-2016)
  
  
• Sectarian violence in Northern Ireland grows again (23-Jun-2011)
  
  
• England threatened with IRA terrorists from Northern Ireland (12-May-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Houthis, Iran,
Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, UAE,
North Korea, China, Russia, H.R. McMaster, Lindsey Graham,
Ralph Peters, Theresa May, Ireland, Leo Varadkar,
Arlene Foster, Democratic Unionist Party, DUP,
Jeremy Corbyn, Irish Republican Army, IRA

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 6-Dec-17 World View -- Syria and Russia repeat Aleppo war crimes in massive destruction of Eastern Ghouta

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Syria regime walks out of UN-sponsored Geneva peace talks
  
• Syria and Russia repeat Aleppo war crimes in massive destruction of Eastern Ghouta
  

****
**** Syria regime walks out of UN-sponsored Geneva peace talks
****


Aftermath of Syrian and Russian airstrikes in Arbin in Eastern Ghouta (NRTTV)

Whenever I write about the Syrian war "peace process," I always use
the word "farcical" to describe the peace talks. And this always
turns out to be correct, as the "peace process" always falls apart
with days or weeks, for reasons that were completely obvious at the
time that the peace talks were held.

The core problem is always the same. As I've described in story after
story, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is a delusional psychopath, a
Shia/Alawite who will never let the war end until he's exterminated
all his Sunni enemies, which will never completely happen. As long as
Bashar al-Assad is in power, Syria's civil war, including the war
crimes, the airstrikes and barrel bombs targeting women and children
in schools, hospitals and marketplaces, and the use of Sarin gas and
industrial strength torture on civilians, will never end.

And al-Assad will always have the full cooperation of Russia and Iran
in committing these war crimes, making Russia and Iran war criminals
as well.

There have been two main series of peace conferences. The
UN-sponsored peace conferences have been held in Geneva, led by United
Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.
In most of these meetings, al-Assad representatives attended, but
opposition representatives did not.

When representatives from both sides attended, the two sides didn't
actually talk to each other. Instead, de Mistura led negotiations
with the cute name "proximity talks." What this means is that the
representatives from the two sides sit in separate rooms, and then de
Mistura walks back and forth between the two rooms, carrying messages
back forth. It must be hilarious to watch.

This week's Geneva peace talks were attended by both sides, but the
opposition representatives are taking the position that there must a
transition that removes al-Assad from power. The al-Assad
representatives could not tolerate even being in just the same
building with opposition representations saying that al-Assad must go,
even in the context of proximity talks where the two sides would never
have to see or hear each other, and so the Syrian delegation walked
out of the talks on Saturday.

So, the Geneva talks are supposed to continue until December 15.
Let's watch and see if silver-tongued Staffan de Mistura can convince
Bashar al-Assad to send his delegation back to the peace conference,
before the peace conference ends in total farce. Reuters and The National (UAE) and Foreign Affairs (29-Nov)

Related Articles

• Farcical Syria peace process 'proximity talks' to begin this week in Geneva (25-Jan-2016)
  
  
• Syria's 'peace conference' proceeds as total farce (29-Jan-2014)
  
  
• Russia, Iran and Turkey announce yet another farcical new Syria peace plan (09-May-2017)
  

****
**** Syria and Russia repeat Aleppo war crimes in massive destruction of Eastern Ghouta
****

The second series of "peace talks" have been taking place in Astana,
Kazakhstan, and were attended by Russia, Iran and Turkey. These were
pretty farcical from day one, because they weren't attended by the
actual belligerents in the war, the Bashar al-Assad regime and the
representatives of the opposition. So any agreements reached in
Astana were signed by Russia, Iran and Turkey, but not by the people
on the ground actually fighting.

The main agreement to come out of the Astana peace talks was the
implementation of "de-escalation zones" or "de-confliction zones" in
Syria. In four regions of western Syria, there would be an enforced
ceasefire, and the ceasefire would be guaranteed by Russia, Iran and
Turkey, providing whatever troops are necessary for the functioning of
the checkpoints and observation posts as well as the administration of
the security zones.

Well, needless to say, Bashar al-Assad never agreed to these
de-escalation zones, but it has always been his objective to
completely exterminate all his Sunni opposition enemies, so there was
never any hope that the de-escalation zones would succeed. However,
he did go along with them temporarily, because they freed up his army
to attack the opposition in other areas.

Last year, the al-Assad regime, backed by Russia, conducted an
extremely bloody war of extermination against the civilian residents
of Aleppo, with numerous war crimes. Al-Assad claimed that the battle
of Aleppo was "history in the making":

<QUOTE>"[The liberation of Aleppo was] history in the making
and worthy of more than the word congratulations.

History is being written in these moments. Every Syrian citizen is
taking part in the writing. It started not today, but years ago
when the crisis and the war on Syria began.

I think that after the liberation of Aleppo we’ll talk about the
situation as ... before the liberation of Aleppo and after the
liberation of Aleppo."<END QUOTE>

This was totally delusional on the part of al-Assad, which is not
surprising since he's a delusional psychopath. History was made in
Aleppo by the sheer number of war crimes committed by Syria and
Russia. If the so-called "liberation of Aleppo" is remembered, it
will be for the total destruction of the city.

So the de-escalation zone agreement was supposed to end this kind of
thing, but the destruction of Aleppo is now being repeated in Eastern
Ghouta, which is one of the ceasefire de-escalation zones.

Eastern Ghouta was attacked by the al-Assad regime in 2013 with Sarin
gas. There has been almost continuous bombing since then. In the
last three weeks, the regime, backed up by Russia, has substantially
stepped up the attacks, with massive airstrikes on markets and densely
populated residential areas, killing dozens or hundreds of people.

Eastern Ghouta is part of one of the de-escalation zones that were
agreed to at the Astana talks. Opposition officials say that the
zones were meant as a charade to divert attention from the heavy daily
bombing of civilian areas. That seems to be the case.

According to the United Nations, there are about 400,000 civilians who
are under siege in Eastern Ghouta. Aleppo only had a population of
about 250,000, and so Syria and Russia have a lot more women and
children to kill, so that will be going on for several months.

After that, al-Assad can make another delusional speech about how
clever he is to have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
At any rate, between the farcical Geneva peace talks and the farcical
Astana peace talks, there is no end in sight for Syria's civil war, as
long as Bashar al-Assad is in power. Reuters and Le Point (Paris) and NRTTV (Kurdistan)

Related Articles

• Syria's war resumes in full, as 'de-escalation' agreements unravel (06-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Russia uses the 'Grozny Model' to pursue mass slaughter in Aleppo Syria (02-Aug-2016)
  
  
• Syria's al-Assad goes for the kill, turning Aleppo and civilians to bloody rubble (24-Sep-2016)
  
  
• U.N. team finds 'large scale' use of sarin gas in Syria (17-Sep-2013)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Iran,
Turkey, Eastern Ghouta, Aleppo, Sarin gas, de-escalation zones,
Staffan de Mistura, proximity talks, Geneva, Astana, Kazakhstan

Permanent web link to this article
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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[Cynic Hero '86]

(12-05-2017, 10:08 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: *** 6-Dec-17 World View -- Syria and Russia repeat Aleppo war crimes in massive destruction of Eastern Ghouta

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Syria regime walks out of UN-sponsored Geneva peace talks
  
• Syria and Russia repeat Aleppo war crimes in massive destruction of Eastern Ghouta
  

****
**** Syria regime walks out of UN-sponsored Geneva peace talks
****


Aftermath of Syrian and Russian airstrikes in Arbin in Eastern Ghouta (NRTTV)

Whenever I write about the Syrian war "peace process," I always use
the word "farcical" to describe the peace talks.  And this always
turns out to be correct, as the "peace process" always falls apart
with days or weeks, for reasons that were completely obvious at the
time that the peace talks were held.

The core problem is always the same.  As I've described in story after
story, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is a delusional psychopath, a
Shia/Alawite who will never let the war end until he's exterminated
all his Sunni enemies, which will never completely happen.  As long as
Bashar al-Assad is in power, Syria's civil war, including the war
crimes, the airstrikes and barrel bombs targeting women and children
in schools, hospitals and marketplaces, and the use of Sarin gas and
industrial strength torture on civilians, will never end.

And al-Assad will always have the full cooperation of Russia and Iran
in committing these war crimes, making Russia and Iran war criminals
as well.

There have been two main series of peace conferences.  The
UN-sponsored peace conferences have been held in Geneva, led by United
Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.
In most of these meetings, al-Assad representatives attended, but
opposition representatives did not.

When representatives from both sides attended, the two sides didn't
actually talk to each other.  Instead, de Mistura led negotiations
with the cute name "proximity talks."  What this means is that the
representatives from the two sides sit in separate rooms, and then de
Mistura walks back and forth between the two rooms, carrying messages
back forth.  It must be hilarious to watch.

This week's Geneva peace talks were attended by both sides, but the
opposition representatives are taking the position that there must a
transition that removes al-Assad from power.  The al-Assad
representatives could not tolerate even being in just the same
building with opposition representations saying that al-Assad must go,
even in the context of proximity talks where the two sides would never
have to see or hear each other, and so the Syrian delegation walked
out of the talks on Saturday.

So, the Geneva talks are supposed to continue until December 15.
Let's watch and see if silver-tongued Staffan de Mistura can convince
Bashar al-Assad to send his delegation back to the peace conference,
before the peace conference ends in total farce.  Reuters and The National (UAE) and Foreign Affairs (29-Nov)

Related Articles

• Farcical Syria peace process 'proximity talks' to begin this week in Geneva (25-Jan-2016)
  
  
• Syria's 'peace conference' proceeds as total farce (29-Jan-2014)
  
  
• Russia, Iran and Turkey announce yet another farcical new Syria peace plan (09-May-2017)
  

****
**** Syria and Russia repeat Aleppo war crimes in massive destruction of Eastern Ghouta
****

The second series of "peace talks" have been taking place in Astana,
Kazakhstan, and were attended by Russia, Iran and Turkey.  These were
pretty farcical from day one, because they weren't attended by the
actual belligerents in the war, the Bashar al-Assad regime and the
representatives of the opposition.  So any agreements reached in
Astana were signed by Russia, Iran and Turkey, but not by the people
on the ground actually fighting.

The main agreement to come out of the Astana peace talks was the
implementation of "de-escalation zones" or "de-confliction zones" in
Syria.  In four regions of western Syria, there would be an enforced
ceasefire, and the ceasefire would be guaranteed by Russia, Iran and
Turkey, providing whatever troops are necessary for the functioning of
the checkpoints and observation posts as well as the administration of
the security zones.

Well, needless to say, Bashar al-Assad never agreed to these
de-escalation zones, but it has always been his objective to
completely exterminate all his Sunni opposition enemies, so there was
never any hope that the de-escalation zones would succeed.  However,
he did go along with them temporarily, because they freed up his army
to attack the opposition in other areas.

Last year, the al-Assad regime, backed by Russia, conducted an
extremely bloody war of extermination against the civilian residents
of Aleppo, with numerous war crimes.  Al-Assad claimed that the battle
of Aleppo was "history in the making":

   <QUOTE>"[The liberation of Aleppo was] history in the making
   and worthy of more than the word congratulations.

   History is being written in these moments. Every Syrian citizen is
   taking part in the writing. It started not today, but years ago
   when the crisis and the war on Syria began.

   I think that after the liberation of Aleppo we’ll talk about the
   situation as ... before the liberation of Aleppo and after the
   liberation of Aleppo."<END QUOTE>

This was totally delusional on the part of al-Assad, which is not
surprising since he's a delusional psychopath.  History was made in
Aleppo by the sheer number of war crimes committed by Syria and
Russia.  If the so-called "liberation of Aleppo" is remembered, it
will be for the total destruction of the city.

So the de-escalation zone agreement was supposed to end this kind of
thing, but the destruction of Aleppo is now being repeated in Eastern
Ghouta, which is one of the ceasefire de-escalation zones.

Eastern Ghouta was attacked by the al-Assad regime in 2013 with Sarin
gas.  There has been almost continuous bombing since then.  In the
last three weeks, the regime, backed up by Russia, has substantially
stepped up the attacks, with massive airstrikes on markets and densely
populated residential areas, killing dozens or hundreds of people.

Eastern Ghouta is part of one of the de-escalation zones that were
agreed to at the Astana talks.  Opposition officials say that the
zones were meant as a charade to divert attention from the heavy daily
bombing of civilian areas.  That seems to be the case.

According to the United Nations, there are about 400,000 civilians who
are under siege in Eastern Ghouta.  Aleppo only had a population of
about 250,000, and so Syria and Russia have a lot more women and
children to kill, so that will be going on for several months.

After that, al-Assad can make another delusional speech about how
clever he is to have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
At any rate, between the farcical Geneva peace talks and the farcical
Astana peace talks, there is no end in sight for Syria's civil war, as
long as Bashar al-Assad is in power.  Reuters and Le Point (Paris) and NRTTV (Kurdistan)

Related Articles

• Syria's war resumes in full, as 'de-escalation' agreements unravel (06-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Russia uses the 'Grozny Model' to pursue mass slaughter in Aleppo Syria (02-Aug-2016)
  
  
• Syria's al-Assad goes for the kill, turning Aleppo and civilians to bloody rubble (24-Sep-2016)
  
  
• U.N. team finds 'large scale' use of sarin gas in Syria (17-Sep-2013)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Iran,
Turkey, Eastern Ghouta, Aleppo, Sarin gas, de-escalation zones,
Staffan de Mistura, proximity talks, Geneva, Astana, Kazakhstan

Permanent web link to this article
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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum:    http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

Once again you blame Assad for the entire war in syria while barely mentioning the other participants in the conflict. Once again you use the most biased and immflamatory language to describe Assad and give an utterly one-sided view of the war in Syria.

[John J. Xenakis]

(12-06-2017, 02:12 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: > Once again you blame Assad for the entire war in syria while
> barely mentioning the other participants in the conflict. Once
> again you use the most biased and immflamatory language to
> describe Assad and give an utterly one-sided view of the war in
> Syria.

That's not true. I also blame Russia and Iran, not just al-Assad. I
blame all the war criminals.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 7-Dec-17 World View -- International #MeToo movement generates backlash against women from 'Mike Pence rule'

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Time Magazine makes international #MeToo movement 'person of the year'
  
• The 'Mike Pence rule' shows how the #MeToo backlash will hurt women
  

****
**** Time Magazine makes international #MeToo movement 'person of the year'
****


Time Magazine's funereal cover: Person of the Year 2017: the #MeToo Silence Breakers

The #MeToo movement has gone international. In the US Congress and
businesses, people are being forced out of office by anonymous sources
and kangaroo courts. In Europe, Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf has
warned men to start listening to women, after tens of thousands of
Swedish women have shared their stories under the #MeToo hashtag.
Female MEPs are talking about their experiences in the European
Parliament, and are openly displaying "#MeToo" placards at their
desks.

The #MeToo hashtag has also spread to China. In China, the state-run
media was forced to retract an article that said that sexual
harassment was a Western problem, but "Chinese men are taught to be
protective of their women. Behaving inappropriately toward women,
including harassing them sexually, contradicts every Chinese
traditional value and custom." The article was taken down after a
furious reaction by women on social media. Women in factory positions
are frequently abused, and Chinese police don't investigate domestic
violence complaints, claiming that it's a family matter.

Time Magazine has now made it official. What Time used to call "Man
of the Year" is now the "Person of the Year," and the winner this year
is "The Silence Breakers," the female movie stars who broke their
silence and openly accused powerful men who harassed and sometimes
abused them.

According to Time, this has been a long time coming:

<QUOTE>"This reckoning appears to have sprung up
overnight. But it has actually been simmering for years, decades,
centuries. Women have had it with bosses and co-workers who not
only cross boundaries but don't even seem to know that boundaries
exist. They've had it with the fear of retaliation, of being
blackballed, of being fired from a job they can't afford to
lose. They've had it with the code of going along to get
along. They've had it with men who use their power to take what
they want from women. These silence breakers have started a
revolution of refusal, gathering strength by the day, and in the
past two months alone, their collective anger has spurred
immediate and shocking results: nearly every day, CEOs have been
fired, moguls toppled, icons disgraced. In some cases, criminal
charges have been brought."<END QUOTE>

And there's no end in sight. Any man who said or did something
to a woman even decades ago that she finds offensive can now
be accused and judged by a kangaroo court to be guilty.

What are the rules? Can a man flirt? Can a man ask a woman he works
with out on a date? Can a man tell a woman that she looks good today?
Can a man have a sexy picture of his wife on his desk? Can a fireman
read Playboy in the firehouse? In the circus atmosphere of today's
he-said/she-said world, any interaction between a man and a woman can
be turned into an accusation of sexual harassment.

Female BBC news anchor Katty Kay says that a backlash is already
developing:

<QUOTE>"The next fear is that men will get so nervous that
they're going to be accused of harassment that they will simply
stop hiring, meeting or socializing with female colleagues. There
are reports this is already happening. We will get shut out of the
room where important decisions are made because men fear our
presence? How ironic would that be?"<END QUOTE>

As more and more men are forced to face sexual harassment accusations
in the current circus atmosphere, it's pretty safe to say that the
circus can't last, and that this will pass in a few months.

This will be a big relief to everyone, especially women, who are going
to be facing an increasing backlash, the longer that this continues.
Time Magazine and Politico (EU) and The Local (Sweden) and BBC and Guardian (London, 17-Oct)

****
**** The 'Mike Pence rule' shows how the #MeToo backlash will hurt women
****

People are talking about the current sexual harassment circus as
if this is the first time that anything like this ever happened.

Actually, exactly the same thing happened in the 1990s, and the
backlash that women felt in the 1990s tells us a great deal
about the backlash that women are going to be facing today.

At the beginning of the decade, feminists attacked Clarence Thomas
because he had asked Anita Hill out on a date a decade earlier. At
the end of the decades, feminists fought bitterly to protect Bill
Clinton from seven or more women who credibly accused Clinton of
violent forcible rape while he was governor of Arkansas. The entire
decade was a circus.

The decade was a disaster for women. The relations between men and
women in the workplace were extremely toxic, as was reported by
many commentators.

I spent much of the 1990s decade doing research for a book on gender
issues called Fraternizing with the Enemy - A book on gender issues
for men and for women who care about men. I researched the whole
range of gender issues - divorce, domestic violence, rape, teen
motherhood, sexual harassment, child abuse, incest, including detailed
discussions of the Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton issues. The book
was based on thousands of interviews and online conversations, as well
as extensive research into such things as "feminist legal theory" and
"feminist social theory."

The book is available as a free PDF, on my download page, http://generationaldynamics.com/download/.

During my research, I spoke to many men who considered talking to any
woman in the workplace to be a career risk. Several men told me
stories of making some innocent remark and being charged with
harassment.

Earlier this year, it emerged that Vice President Mike Pence had a
policy of never having lunch alone with any woman except his wife, or
of drinking alcohol unless his wife was by his side. Since Pence is
an evangelical Christian, the mainstream media mocked this as some
sort of religious rite. Maybe religion was part of it, but many men
who were in the workplace in the 1990s feel the same way. Mike
Pence's policy is what I've heard many men describe.

This toxic relationship between men and women in the workplace is
growing again today. NBC News quotes labor attorney Nestor Barrero as
saying that "many people" have already asked him if they should take
"the Mike Pence approach." He advises against it, but this and other
anecdotal evidence indicates that the 1990s are repeating themselves
in that men would rather work with men and not with women, because
working with women is too great a career risk.

Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, says that sexual harassment is a
serious problem, but says "I have already heard the rumblings of a
backlash: ‘This is why you shouldn’t hire women." (She adds,
hopefully, "Actually, this is why you should.")

I want to quote some excerpts from my book, Chapter 2, "Real Rape"
(the title taken from the title of the book "Real Rape" by Democratic
activist Susan Estrich). What I described then is what exactly what's
happening today, except for a few name changes:

<QUOTE>"The country's largest feminist organization, NOW (The
National Organization of Women), began the 90s by vocally and
defiantly screaming harassment at a black man who allegedly told a
woman a few dirty jokes, and ended up the decade by defending,
condoning and carrying water for a white man who allegedly and
credibly is a serial rapist, a man who gropes, flashes, uses and
abuses every woman in his life.

If the great, all-powerful male patriarchy had wanted to hatch a
plot to cause as much damage and destruction as possible to women
and feminists, they could never have done anything so destructive
as NOW did to women during the 90s. NOW has damaged men, women,
and society so much that it will take years, perhaps decades for
the country to recover from it. The only good thing about what
happened is that they've totally discredited themselves by
carrying water for Clinton, arguably the country's most abusive
politician.

Long before the Clinton sex scandals, the policies advocated by
NOW and other feminist groups, the relationship between men and
women in the marketplace became enormously hostile, and this
hostility ended up hurting women.

For example, one man is a friend of mine who runs a professional
office with his wife. They had had the practice since the 70s of
hiring a married woman college graduate each year to serve as an
intern for a year. Many of these women went on to become
professionals in their own right. However, following Anita Hill's
testimony, this man changed his policy, and decided he would never
hire another woman intern. Since that time, he's only hired male
interns.

Another example: Another friend of mine ran an office where he
normally had about a dozen women social workers working for him.
He told me, "I don't dare even tell an employee, 'You look nice
today,' because I'm afraid she'll bring sexual harassment charges.
The only exception is my secretary -- she's worked for me for ten
years, and I can trust her." In other words, this man could not
trust the other women working for him.

Almost every man I spoke to had some story. One man told me that
he'd seen a condom machine in a men's room, and he mentioned
briefly to a woman associate how shocked he was to see it; she
brought a sexual harassment complaint. He told me, "There's
something wrong with women today. They're crazy."

In fact, I've tended to call these stories "crazy women stories,"
because every man I asked always seemed to have some story, and
always seemed to add to it some words like, "These women are
crazy."

One man after another told me they didn't want to have anything to
do with women in the workplace. By extrapolating the examples I
heard, I would estimate that literally millions of jobs nationwide
suddenly became unavailable to women. And women in the workplace
were viewed by men as being unstable, unreliable, or "crazy." ...

It's easy enough to blame men about all this, and I'm sure any
feminist reading this automatically does so, but this catastrophe
was brought about by NOW and other feminist organizations
encouraging women to act this way. ...

And did women gain anything from all this turmoil? They didn't,
and for a reason that feminist "theory" didn't anticipate. When a
sexual harassment complaint roils a workplace, a lot of hostility
gets generated, and that hostility appears to break half against
the alleged victim and half against the alleged perpetrator.

I've heard from women who brought sexual harassment complaints
against someone, and it was always disastrous for the accused man,
but it also backfired against the accusing woman. These women
were treated with hostility by everyone else, including other
women. ...

I saw one occasion like this with my own eyes between two people I
knew at work. The man said something dumb to a woman and got her
angry. She complained to the HR rep. The HR rep, a woman, called
the man into her office and accused him of harassment. He got
pissed off, stormed out of her office, and quit, and got another
job immediately elsewhere, at higher pay. The company lost a
valuable worker, and everyone, especially the women,
[i]especially the man's (female) manager, were pissed off as
hell at this woman who brought the sexual harassment complaint and
caused so much trouble."<END QUOTE>[/i]

There's a great deal more information in my book, and I recommend that anyone interested in the subject of
gender issues should download the PDF and read it.

This is now an international issue, and it really is a circus. Many
women feel that "something must be done," but they can't figure out
what that something is.

Katty Kay, the female BBC news anchor, says:

<QUOTE>"A backlash now against women would be the worst thing
that can happen, it would shove this topic back under the carpet
for years. So let's tread carefully, act soberly and use this
moment, with the willing support of our male colleagues, to make
our workplaces safer and happier."<END QUOTE>

She's right. The backlash that developed in the 1990s did shove the
topic under the carpet for almost 20 years.

Why should any man take sexual harassment seriously, when feminist
organizations and the Democratic establishment protected Bill Clinton
from multiple credible forcible rape accusations for years? Susan
Estrich was Clinton's principal supporter after the multiple forcible
rape charges. Estrich herself had been raped, and been an active part
of the 1990s sexual harassment circus, but then sold herself out as a
woman and a rape victim to defend Clinton. Why should any man take
sexual harassment seriously after that? Even worse, feminists make
wild, irresponsible claims that 25% of all female college students are
raped, when the actual figure is about 0.1%. And no one doubts that
feminists and the Democratic establishment are protecting other
harassers and rapists today.

The bottom line is this: Men will never take sexual harassment
seriously until women do. NBC News and Washington Post (30-March) and Fast Company and Book: Fraternizing with the Enemy (PDF)

Related Articles

• France's Dominique Strauss-Kahn acquitted of 'aggravated pimping' (13-Jun-2015)
  
  
• France's politics in turmoil from collapse of Strauss-Kahn rape case (02-Jul-2011)
  
  
• Collapse of Duke rape case represents cultural change (22-Apr-2007)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, #MeToo, Time Magazine, King Carl XVI Gustaf,
Katty Kay, Mike Pence, Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill,
Susan Estrich, Bill Clinton, Nestor Barrero,
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook, National Organization of Women, NOW

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
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Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 8-Dec-17 World View -- Turkey's president Erdogan visits Greece with a list of contentious demands

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Turkey's president Erdogan visits Greece with a list of contentious demands
  
• Greece furious at Germany over intense airport inspections
  

****
**** Turkey's president Erdogan visits Greece with a list of contentious demands
****


Map showing Greece's Aegean Sea islands that Turkey wants to claim (DW)

Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan began a two-day trip to Greece
on Thursday. This was the first visit by a Turkish head of state in
65 years, since 1952, and only the second visit by Erdogan to any EU
nation in 18 months. Relations between Turkey and Greece have been
tense for years (for millennia, actually), at a time when relations
between Turkey and all of the European Union have been sharply
deteriorating, and so the nominal purpose of this trip was to improve
bilateral relations between Greece and Turkey.

Possibly the most contentious issue is an agreement about the
island of Cyprus. Half the island has a Greek government, and
that part is a member nation of the European Union. The other half
has a Turkish government, considered illegal by the European Union.
Repeated attempts to unify the island have failed.

So on Thursday, Erdogan referred to peace talks that failed
earlier this year, and said:

<QUOTE>"Who left the table? Southern Cyprus did.... We want
the issue to reach a fair and lasting solution but that is not
southern Cyprus' concern."<END QUOTE>

This was at a joint press conference with Greece's president
Alexis Tsipras. Tsipras responded:

<QUOTE>"My dear friend, Mr. President, we must not forget
that this issue remains unresolved because 43 years ago there was
an illegal invasion and occupation of the northern part of
Cyprus."<END QUOTE>

Tsipras also complained about frequent violations of Greece's
airspace in the Aegean sea:

<QUOTE>"The increasing violations of Greek airspace in the
Aegean and particularly the simulated dogfights in the Aegean pose
a threat to our relations, and particularly a threat to our
pilots."<END QUOTE>

It's possible that Erdogan's warplane violations in the Aegean Sea are
related to his frequently stated demand that the Lausanne Treaty be
renegotiated, to give part of the Aegean Sea to Turkey. As we reported last year,
Erdogan claims
that Turkey was cheated when it was forced to sign the Lausanne Treaty
on July 24, 1923, saying bitterly, "At Lausanne, we gave away the
(Greek) islands that you could shout across to." Proponents of the
status quo point out that the Lausanne Treaty was an important
part of guaranteeing peace between Greece and Turkey following World
War I.

Erdogan claimed that Greece is violating the treaty by refusing to
respect the Muslim minority living in Greece, particularly the Turkish
enclave in Thrace in northeastern Greece near the border with Turkey.
On Friday, the second day of his 2-day visit to Greece, Erdogan has
scheduled a visit to Thrace to see for himself. Erdogan says that he
visited western Thrace in 2005, where there are 150,000 Turkish
descendants, and he wants to visit again. Erdogan is demanding
increased rights for the Muslims of Thrace, complaining that
Greece doesn't even allow them to select their own religious
leaders.

A final demand by Erdogan was to extradite eight Turkish soldiers and
officers who fled from Turkey to Greece on the night of the botched
coup in Turkey. The eight soldiers, included two commanders, four
captains and two sergeants, had escaped to Greece on a Sikorsky
helicopter and landed in Alexandroupolis. The soldiers denied
involvement in the coup, but said that they would not receive a fair
trial in Turkey. Greece says that they cannot be extradited unless
the courts rule it based on evidence that has so far not been
presented that they were involved in the coup.

Overshadowing the visit was the situation involving the EU-Turkey
migrant deal that was signed in 2015. The agreement has been very
successful, in that it's reduced the flow of migrants from Syria and
Iraq into the EU from a torrent into a trickle. However, the number
of migrants has been increasing recently, and the EU has failed to
fulfill its obligations under the deal: Visa-free travel for all
Turkish citizens visiting Europe's Schengen zone, and an acceleration
of negotiations for Turkey to join the EU. Kathimerini and Deutsche Welle and Kathimerini

Related Articles

• Erdogan says some Greek islands should really belong to Turkey (11-Dec-2016)
  
  
• Furious Turkey threatens migrant deal over Greece's failure to extradite (28-Jan-2017)
  

****
**** Greece furious at Germany over intense airport inspections
****

Airline passengers traveling from Greece to Germany are supposed to
enjoy visa-free travel, since both countries are in Europe's Schengen
Zone, hailed as the greatest achievement of European integration. The
Schengen agreement effectively abolished border controls between most
European Union member states in 1985, allowing the area to function as
a passport-free single country for all its travelers

For the past three weeks, planes carrying passengers from Greece to
Germany are no longer allowed to debark into the airline terminal.
Instead, they're herded into a bus and taken to a secluded corner of
the airport, where they have to stand out in the cold for up to an
hour to be receive scrutinizing passport checks and controls.
Belgium is adopting a similar policy.

The reason given is security, and fears of a terror attack during the
holiday season. Germany's Interior Ministry says that authorities
have counted more than 1,000 illegal entries from Greece since the
start of the year.

Greeks are furious that, once again, they're being used as scapegoats
and held to blame for a refugee problem that they didn't create and
for which they're receiving little help from the rest of the EU.
According to one traveler from Greece:

<QUOTE>"Germany's security concerns may be valid. And the
Greek government, also, may be responsible for its abysmal
handling of the refugee crisis. But that does not justify
unilateral action. It is as if the US state of Massachusetts
orders all incoming US travelers from California to go through
passport controls at foreign arrivals terminals because California
is teeming with migrants."<END QUOTE>

This incident only adds to the general fury that Greeks continue to
feel towards the Germans, after Germany demanded that draconian fiscal
measures be imposed on Greece during the bailout negotiations several
years ago. Many Greeks are also still furious at Germany for the Nazi
invasion. Kathimerini (21-Nov) and Deutsche Welle (28-Nov)

Related Articles

• Germany's government blocks debt relief for Greece, despite new austerity measures (23-May-2017)
  
  
• Greece may demand 162 billion euros in WW II reparations from Germany (09-Apr-2013)
  
  
• France-Germany split over 3-day ultimatum to Greece leads to flared tempers (13-Jul-2015)
  
  
• Germany openly backs plan to give EU control of Greece's budget (30-Jan-2012)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Greece, Alexis Tsipras, Cyprus, Lausanne Treaty,
Aegean Sea, Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Germany

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[pbrower2a]

Prediction: the crusade against sexual harassment will intensify the current tendency toward sexual conformity and reprssion with he exception of the legal acceptance of same-sex rights. To get those, mainstream gays and lesbians threw the perverts under the 'bus' of history.  We may see a renewed tendency toward sexual segregation in the workplace.

It is worth remembering that when Roy Moore was a 30-something 'Humbert Humbert' during the 1980s, the Sexual Revolution was still little abated. Moore was still a Democrat, if probably part of the Georg Wallace wing. Of course he abused official power in so doing. I need not go into the sordid details. Here's hoping that he loses; I hate perverts and abusers of official power.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 9-Dec-17 World View -- United Nations stunned as peacekeepers are massacred in DR Congo

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• United Nations stunned as peacekeepers are massacred in DR Congo
  
• Violence continues to spread in countries across Africa
  
• Generational analysis of the rise in armed conflicts in Africa
  

****
**** United Nations stunned as peacekeepers are massacred in DR Congo
****


Graph showing that the number of armed conflicts in Africa has been growing fairly steadily since the end of World War II (IDMC)

The worst attack on United Nations peacekeepers in recent history
killed 15 people and wounded 54 on Thursday evening in Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) in Kivu state, near the border with Rwanda and
Uganda.

UN secretary-general António Guterres made a standard statement
expressing outrage:

<QUOTE>"These deliberate attacks against UN peacekeepers are
unacceptable and constitute a war crime. I condemn this attack
unequivocally. There must be no impunity for such assaults, here
or anywhere else. ...

These brave women and men are putting their lives on the line
every day across the world to serve peace and to protect
civilians."<END QUOTE>

Officials in Tanzania expressed shock as well, since 14 of the deaths
were of peacekeepers from Tanzania.

There are 15 UN peacekeeping missions, and the largest of them, with
15,000 personnel, is the DRC mission Monusco (United Nations
Organization Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo), with 1,000 troops
from Tanzania.

It's estimated that there are some 120 armed groups in eastern DRC,
described as mostly ragtag groups of 60-70 people each.

In this case the suspected attackers are the Alliance of Democratic
Forces (ADF), a group of Islamists formed in the late 1990s in western
Uganda to fight the government of Uganda. However, a number of
analysts say other militia and elements of Congo’s own army have also
been involved.

DRC's president Joseph Kabila is following the standard pattern of
African nation leaders of refusing to step down, benefiting from
massive corruption, and using massive violence against the opposition
to stay in power.

Kabila has stated that he does not want any UN forces in his country,
and so it's entirely plausible, though unproven, that Kabila ordered
his army to cooperate with the ADF in Thursday's massacre of the UN
peacekeepers.

Kabila's bloodiest violence is in the opposition stronghold, the
central province of Kasai, where more than 3,000 people have been
killed in escalating violence blamed on a government-sponsored
militia. The UN has identified more than 80 mass graves and said it
had found toddlers with limbs chopped off and pregnant women with
their bellies sliced open, their unborn babies mutilated.

The violence has resulted in 3.9 million people forced to flee their
homes to escape the violence. Hundreds of thousands have fled to
Zambia, Angola and other neighboring countries as refugees, creating a
humanitarian disaster in those countries, and threatening to
destabilize the entire region. United Nations
and Reuters and Global Security and MONUSCO

Related Articles

• Democratic Republic of Congo issues farcical call for elections in December 2018 (07-Nov-2017)
  
  
• DR Congo's Joseph Kabila brings the art of power and corruption to new heights (24-Jul-2017)
  
  
• Massive government atrocities in DR Congo's Kasai threaten regional stability (21-Jun-2017)
  

****
**** Violence continues to spread in countries across Africa
****

The violence in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is one of the worst
of any country in the world, but similar violence occurs in many
African countries, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring
Center (IDMC).

The IDMC report measures the number of internally displaced people
(IDPs) in each country. These are people who are forced to flee from
their homes either because of violence or because of a natural
disaster (usually meaning a drought). In this article, we're focusing
on people fleeing violence.

The countries in Africa with the most IDPs are Sudan (3.3m), DRC
(2.2m), Nigeria (2.0m), South Sudan (1.9m), and Somalia (1.1m).
People who are forced to flee violence often experience further
violence again in their place of displacement, including murder and
rape. People in displacement camps are vulnerable to human
trafficking and slavery.

DRC is the worst affected in the last year. In just January through
June of this year, there were 997,000 more displacements in DRC, more
than the 922,000 that were displaced in the entire year 2016.

Africa is disproportionately affected by conflict. Africa has 16% of
the world's population, but over 33% of the world's conflicts. As the
graph at the beginning of this article shows, the number of armed
conflicts in Africa has been growing fairly steadily since the end of
World War II.

However, the IDMC found an apparent contradiction that they have to
explain: Although the number of armed conflicts has been rising, the
intensity of these conflicts has been falling, and yet the number of
IDPs has been rising. They explain this as follows:

<QUOTE>"Why then the consistently high rates of conflict
displacement seen in our figures? Other forms of violence are on
the rise, in some instances involving higher death tolls. ACLED,
which monitors armed conflict and political violence, indicates
that riots, protests and bombings are increasing in Africa.

Importantly, violence against civilians is on the rise. Forty-two
per cent of incidents of political violence targeted civilians in
2014, and 45 per cent in 2016."<END QUOTE>

According to the report, there were 2.7 million people newly displaced
people in Africa between January and June of this year, the equivalent
of 15,000 people forced from their homes every day. 75% of of new
displacement is attributed to conflict and violence. Internal displacement monitoring center (IDMC) and Institute for Security Studies and EyeWitnessNews (South Africa)

****
**** Generational analysis of the rise in armed conflicts in Africa
****

The DRC alone is being described as a "mega-crisis" because of the
huge numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs), but it's far from
unique, as illustrated by the numbers above. Outside of Africa, Syria
also has millions of IDPs.

I've written articles about numerous countries that are currently in
generational Awakening or Unraveling eras, with leaders that refuse to
step down and are using violence and atrocities against civilians to
stay in power. These include Paul Biya in Cameroon, Pierre Nkurunziza
in Burundi, Paul Kagame in Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Robert
Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Joseph Kabila in DRC, or, outside of Africa,
Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Hun Sen in Cambodia.

There's a reason why so many African countries are in generational
Awakening eras. The Awakening era is one generation past the end of
the preceding generational crisis war, and for most countries of the
world, the last crisis war was World War II, so the generational
Awakening era occurred in the 1960s and 1970s.

However, African countries have been on a different timeline. Most
African countries were largely unaffected by World War II, but had
generational crisis wars in the 1960s-80s. These wars were usually
wars of "liberation" from colonial powers.

The graph at the beginning of this article shows that the number of
armed conflicts in Africa has been growing fairly steadily since the
end of World War II. In many cases, the colonial powers drafted men
from their African countries to fight in WW II, but the countries
themselves were not always involved. After WW II ended, the number of
demands for liberation from colonial powers led to liberation wars,
which explains the sharp increase in armed conflicts in the next three
decades.

However, the armed conflicts that lead to independence for these
African nations did not resolve the ethnic and tribal differences
occurring within the nations. In country after country, a leader from
one tribe or another took control of the country, became right through
corruption, often channeling international aid into their own bank
accounts or into weapons to be used against political enemies, and
continued using violence for decades to stay in power.

So the "apparent contradiction" that the IDMC found as described
earlier in this article, is explained by the fact that the tribal,
ethnic and anti-colonial wars have been ending, but the violence has
been replaced by leaders staying in power by using genocide, murders,
rapes, torture, jailings, and massacres.

One thing that's pretty clear is that there's no end in sight for this
kind of violence. To the contrary, new post-war generations of young
men and women are coming of age, and these leaders who are doing
everything they to stay in power are going to have to commit more
murders, rapes, torture and jailings to keep these new generations
under control.

This leads to a grim choice for the United Nations and its
peacekeeping forces. These peacekeeping forces have been failing to
accomplish anything of value, and they will fail even more in the
future. These forces are hugely expensive, and really accomplish
little or nothing. On the other hand, nobody wants to leave Africa in
distress without doing everything possible to help, even if the help
is futile. This is one of those problems that have no solution.
BBC

Related Articles

• Cameroon's English-speaking provinces on the verge of full-scale violence (04-Dec-2017)
  
  
• Cambodia dissolves the opposition political party so that Hun Sen can be reelected unopposed (17-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Burundi's Hutu government leaves International Criminal Court to avoid crimes against humanity charges (28-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Burma's (Myanmar's) leaders may be inspired by Pol Pot's Cambodian 'Killing Fields' genocide (29-Sep-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, United Nations, António Guterres, Tanzania,
Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Joseph Kabila, Kasai,
United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo,
Monusco, Alliance of Democratic Forces, ADF, Uganda,
Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, IDMC,
Sudan, Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe